Overcoming Friendship Adversity Through Plants by Jack

Overcoming Friendship Adversity Through Plants by Jack - May 2022 Scholarship Essay

I love plants; the way they’re so ordinary yet so intricate fascinates me. My fourth-grade teacher planted the seed of my obsession with plants when she taught a lesson where we grew little grass cup pets and gave them regular “haircuts.” Since then, I have started a collection of 34 different types of succulents - all with unique characteristics. My favorite succulent, living in a gray pot on a wooden side table in my room, is the greenish-white pachyphytum oviferum. Although thriving, it has lost a multitude of leaves over the years, but new stems have sprouted where the previous leaves had lived. This succulent now fills the pot, where once it was just a single plant barely bigger than my thumb.

I also love people; the way they’re so ordinary yet intricate fascinates me - especially when delving into how relationships form and grow. Just as I care for my plants, I nurture my relationships with others. It took me a bit to realize how much the two worlds have in common. For example, I have tried watering dead plants in the hopes of reviving them. Similarly, I have tried keeping friendships alive by offering acts of kindness, such as paying for others’ ice cream and prioritizing others needs over my responsibilities. Needless to say, neither watering a dead plant nor nurturing faulty friendships by offering material favors resulted in positive outcomes. However, I also realized that by removing a plant’s dead leaves, I allowed the soil’s nutrients to support new growth - as in what happened with the succulent in my room. Likewise, by removing dead relationships from my life, I had more time to devote to nurturing productive relationships, relationships that eventually grew into healthy friendships where mutual respect and kindness were able to exist.

Plant development and human development are also analogous in many ways. Like a plant’s root system, people ground themselves in activities that help them prosper. I “planted” my roots into a variety of clubs and organizations to help me foster my interests and discover new passions. Experiences as a member of these groups cultivated me into the young man I am today. Just as plants blossom, so did I: I deposited my roots in self-care and learned the importance of exercising and maintaining a healthful diet; I strengthened my stem (brain) by enrolling in rigorous academic classes and successfully completing them, earning straight As; I fertilized my sense of community by volunteering and earning my Eagle Award in Scouting.
It is important to rotate plants (and my succulents) to assist them in maintaining balance since they naturally lean towards the sun for a source of nourishment. Likewise, I make sure to fill my life with a variety of activities, ensuring my development will continue to grow in a balanced manner. Through all of my activities and learning experiences, I have grown into an independent, confident person who thrives in stimulating environments - much like my plants do.