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Tightly furled, in its heart, the flower fears blooming.
Fears blooming? How ridiculous.
But it does. It is afraid. It feels it should be a practical plant - like a carrot or a potato. Some kind of root vegetable, firmly grounded into the earth, able to nourish people, a staple of human survival.
But flowers are beautiful...
Beauty is not enough. What importance does beauty have in a world where people hunger? Their need is great, their hunger is real. Vegetables can fulfil this real need.
Yeah, vegetables are great, but so are flowers. People love flowers.
Flowers make people sneeze. And they aren't practical. They look pretty for a time but they don't serve any real purpose.
Maybe if it tried harder it could learn to be a root vegetable. It could figure out how to ground itself, maybe it just needs to find the right expert to help it, the right book or the right video. Then maybe it can help people.
STOP. You aren't a vegetable.
When did you decide that there is only way to "feed" people? Flowers provide sustenance for the industrious bees who pollinate other plants and provide the world with food. Without flowers and without bees, most other plants would also die. So perhaps you do help feed the world, even if only indirectly.
Even if you didn't, maybe you are enough as a blossom. Yeah, some people might be allergic to you, but there are those that passionately love flowers. What are you depriving them of?
How do you know that you won't grow into a beautiful plum or a voluptuous cherry or even a nutritious apple if you won't allow yourself to bloom and mature into what you are meant to become?
Preventing yourself from blossoming will never make you a vegetable. It will only make you an unfulfilled flower. So stop trying to be something you're not and embrace what you are. And go out and bloom already.