The resurrecting miracle of self-discipline
and personal responsibility

In my last two posts, I shared how I made a mega-stupid mistake Easter Day, way back in 1997 — almost killing $30,000 worth of flowers.

This was at a Hindu monastery/yoga retreat I lived at for three years up in the mountains of Southern California. Our main source of income came from cultivating flowers. The monks had taken a vow of poverty, but were selling the daily blooms from our hibiscus-packed greenhouses to wealthy celebrities in Hollywood. I remember the flowers we grew would end up at a Martha Stewart event or even the Emmy and Oscar Award ceremonies.

And I almost killed them all.

That Easter weekend, I had the job of opening the greenhouse when the sun came out. But as I told you, it was a cold and cloudy day up until noon — so I thought it was fine to go watch the epic three-and-a-half-hour film, Ben Hur. When I exited our barn-turned-movie-theatre I found the sun shining. Running to the hothouses, I discovered I had been saved by my supervisor, Brother David, who had already opened up the doors and had the fans rumbling (with probably ten minutes to spare before massive causalities).

The next day Brother David sat me down (along with two other older volunteers who committed similar acts of negligence) for a talking to.

I think it hurt him more than us. David never talked much. We considered him reclusive — which is saying a lot when you consider we all lived in a monastery already. I think he preferred dealing with plants, not people.

So his words were brief but incisive. I remember he said something along the lines of:

"The inner and the outer are reflections of each other. If your outer life is disorganized, then your mind is disorganized. Meditation isn't just when you're sitting cross-legged, it's all the time. It's all about being fully aware of what you are experiencing right now and what you are doing."

Well, I can tell you, after that near fatal Easter disaster, I started to take my work much more seriously. And whenever I had greenhouse duty I spent the whole day in the greenhouses or around the greenhouses. I also started creating and implementing ways to improve the irrigation work I did, to not only get it done right, but to get it done better.

Fast forward two years and I'd been transferred to the computer lab, where I was coding custom applications to manage all the logistics of growing and selling what eventually became hundreds of thousands of dollars of hibiscus. I went from not being able to handle a minimum-wage job that required no math skills or literacy to what would probably have been a six-figure job (if they were paying me) that involved organizing a hundred workers.

So that's the story of how my 18-year-old self "died" on Easter Day and was resurrected through the miracle of self-discipline as a slightly more responsible and reliable person.

John C.A. Manley

PS Here's a photo of me (middle with hat), Brother David (left with yellow shirt) and the greenhouse gang from 1997:

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/