Director and Founder, Fulu Fitness, and Audit Manager at EY
Lessons on success from the Chinese bamboo tree
Life can be challenging, and it is easy to throw in the towel when there is no extrinsic motivation to spur you on. Despite all the challenges you face, you need to forge ahead patiently but persistently with no guarantee of how it will all turn out. Life will require to be led as if you have an invisible eye which enables you to see beyond sight.
Hope begins in the dark − the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; you don’t give up.
The parable of the Chinese bamboo tree teaches us lessons about patience, faith, perseverance, growth and development. The tree doesn’t grow visibly until the fifth year, but it does grow underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for outward growth. After five years of deepening its roots, within one week it can grow up to 30 metres!
People growing other trees get results within one season. They are able to enjoy their crop/plants/trees within a couple of seasons, but here is a tree that doesn’t even show up until the fifth year and suddenly shoots up to 30 metres in one week …
Like any plant, the Chinese bamboo tree requires nurturing to grow – water, fertile soil, sunshine. In its first year, we see no visible signs of activity. In the second year, again, no growth above the soil. The third, the fourth, still nothing. Our patience is tested, and we begin to wonder if our efforts (caring, water, etc) will ever be rewarded.
Like the bamboo tree, people who patiently toil towards worthwhile dreams and goals, building strong character while overcoming adversity and challenge, grow the strong internal foundation to handle success.
