It takes 15 years to grow a Tuart

Image: Ecoscape.

Friends recently adopted a Eucalyptus gomphocephala. They water it most days of the week. Within fifteen years it will be 10 metres tall. We too take time to mature.

It’s difficult to say to someone when they want it all now that all things take time. It’s difficult to say, you can’t have it now. Like the Eucalyptus gomphocephala (the Tuart tree), all things of stature take time to develop.

More than ever we live in an instant ‘pop-up’ world. More than ever people want instant results. I know this well even as I get disheartened on day three of a four-month campaign to lose 30 pounds. It’s so easy to say it’s all too hard.

It takes 15 years to grow a Tuart. It takes that sort of time to grow a career too, and a family, and a reputation. Most things take that sort of time to grow. The rules are the same for everyone.

This life favours those with faith enough to invest daily for the fifteen-year result. One day we will be that fifteen years older so we might as well commit to the journey.