Supercilious Seeds

A little seed lay on the ground

And soon began to sprout;

“Now, which of all the flowers around,”

It mused, “shall I come out?

The lily’s face is fair and proud,

But just a trifle cold;

The rose, I think is rather loud,

And then, its fashion’s old.

The violet is all very well,

But not a flower I’d choose;

Nor yet the Canterbury bell —

I never cared for blues.”

And so it criticized each flower,

This supercilious seed,

Until it woke one summer morn,

And found itself — a weed.

Anonymous

I love this poem! If we haven’t been one ourselves (and on third thought, it’s very likely we have been and still are!), then we probably know one or two supercilious seeds. I think that one out of various ways to become this haughty seed is our great expectations of life. We want our family and friends to be perfect and to meet our demands post-haste. If they feel the same way about us, then we are all planting a garden of supercilious seeds.

Anonymous gives us good advice: “Avoid forming refined and romantic notions of human perfection in anything. For these are much apter to heighten our expectations from others, and our demands upon them, than to increase our watchfulness over ourselves; and so every failure provokes us more highly than it would have done else.” Perhaps the solution to turning to seed is to practice patience with our loved and not-so-loved ones, and to remember to have patience with ourselves, also. The only perfect Man on earth died a long time ago!