Yard Work

I love the fall. It's my favorite season.

The smell of autumn in the air, the colors changing in the trees. The leaves covering the ground in shades of orange, red and yellow.

And I love my yard.

The backyard where I can sit on my patio and enjoy the peace and quiet.

The giant oak in the front that offers me both privacy and shade.

But...

I really don't enjoy the yard work.

I won't go so far as to say that I hate it, but it's not in my top ten favorite things to do.

In the fall, that giant oak tree in the front yard drops about a million leaves.

And I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that.

In the last three weeks, I've mulched the yard once, and raked twice. Which resulted in 18 bags of leaves.

Granted, it's a great arm workout.

But it's a lot of hours of manual labor that I could be spending doing things that are much more fun.

I guess like most things in life, if we want to have a yard that we can enjoy, we have to do the work that comes with it.

The mowing.

The weeding.

The raking.

The mulching.

And it never ends. Every year, there's more yard work to do.

But...

The satisfaction of seeing my front yard after all the leaves are cleared and the grass neatly cut is pretty awesome.

I appreciate my home and my yard more after I've worked in it.

This is true whether we're talking about our yards, house projects, achievements in our careers, or any of our personal goals.

If we want them to happen, we have to put in the work.

We have to get out there, rake up those leaves and stuff them into the bags.

We have to fire up the mower and cut through that tall grass.

Invest the hours to make it happen.

And when it's done, we can sit back, take a deep breath, and admire our handiwork.

I hope this was the last Saturday I'll spend raking this year though.

Then I'll have a few months reprieve until Spring.

Or at least until the first snow of the season...

There will always be yard work to do. And I'll probably never enjoy doing it.

But I'll do it anyway.

Because it's all part of the journey. All wrapped up in the things we do that make us human and alive and purposeful.

So, my advice to you (and me) is this:

Tackle that yard work. The literal and figurative leaves of your lives.

Rake them into piles and get rid of them. Clear the way for the next chapter of your story.

And don't forget to smile when you're done.

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