I believe that metaphors are one of the greatest joys in life. And one of my favorite metaphors is that Life is a Garden. In it we plant flowers and trees and bushes. Weeds spring up and they have to be taken out. You decide if you want to plant certain talents or hobbies or habits in your life and how they grow depends on how much you water and tend them. Life is beautiful, but some beautiful things will die if you don’t look after them. That is why we all are responsible for Cultivating our lives.

Cultivate:
1. a. To improve and prepare (land), as by plowing or fertilizing, for raising crops; till.
b. To loosen or dig soil around (growing plants).
2. To grow or tend (a plant or crop).
3. To promote the growth of (a biological culture).
4. To nurture; foster.
5. To form and refine, as by education.
6. To seek the acquaintance or goodwill of; make friends with.

It is coming up to that time of year where I am thinking about resolutions. I love making resolutions, setting goals, writing to-do lists or any sort of list. I think there is something very empowering about it. It makes one feel in control of their future, something that is (secretly) uncontrollable or unpredictable. Here is one of my favorite resolutions which I will be sticking on my wall:

“Cultivate Conversation”

I am not very good at holding conversations. I find myself often walking away from a conversation with a clampy feeling in my gut because things have not come out the way I have wanted them to. I haven’t had the right words or have just been generally inarticulate eg: “er, uni is just, yucky, and I hate it”. I form opinions about big issues on the spot without actually thinking about them, eg: “I am an Anarchist!”. I try to talk to people about things they don’t ‘get’, eg: “I’m really into Jungian archetypes at the moment, Perhaps your need to draw away from the earth symbolizes a mother complex?”.

But thankfully, I have developed a 4 Step Program that will help me and you cultivate our conversations! Conversations are made up of words, so the first 3 steps are about vocabulary, while the 4th step is about conversations as a whole.

1. Make an effort to read more - This will just make you smarter by default. It broadens your mind, gives you more topics to discuss, more points of view to see the world from, and if all else fails, it is an excuse to not have conversations at all.

2. Whenever you read a word you are not 100% sure of the meaning of, remember to write it down and look up the meaning - This is oober important as it is the easiest way to extend your vocabulary. I am going to keep a special word document where I will write down all these words and their meanings.

3. Peruse this list of words and their meanings when you are bored - If you only do step 1 & 2, you will likely forget the words and your efforts will have been fruitless! But if you peruse the list when bored it is not a task, but more of an interesting distraction which helps to concrete the words in your mind and making it more likely you will use them in conversations!

4. Reflect upon conversations afterwards and write down or consciously note what worked or didn’t - Give the conversation an honest rating of 1 to 10. write down what worked and what didn’t and then in devour to avoid or enhance those positive and negative elements in future conversations.

What sort of things do you want to cultivate next year?