After
getting a good morning workout in, I decided to take a longer route
back to the apartment, and as a way of doing something different. I
often do this to challenge my mind to be accepting of new things, and
to break routine.
This year my
neighborhood got a new garden that we’ve all come to appreciate
very much. From what I hear, it all came about after one lady decided
to request the previously abandoned plot of land from the City of
Austin and make a garden of it. How the back and forth went, I don’t
know, but when the city gave permission and folks broke ground, I
enlisted to volunteer to help get it in shape and create beds for the
garden. We got it done, fenced and all.So it’s all a pleasant morning stroll, or at anytime of the day, when I walk by and see the transformation, as my mind goes back to what it used to be like. Members of the community have bought beds and are growing all kinds of plants, flowers, vegetables, and the like there.
But with gardening comes things to buy, right? That’s how mulch found it’s way to the garden. A huge pile of it is set aside right next to the garden for use.
So that morning, I stopped by to take a close look at it — the mulch. It looked like trash, and it was, and it isn’t.
I scooped a bit into my hand and took a close looked at what it’s basic ingredient — pieces of leaves, wood scrap, little tree limbs, and all — is.
I thought again of where all these pieces came from. Literally trash, but now in the right situation, for the right purpose, packaged well, it’s a product that people pay for.
Wait, that’s worth thinking over.
What if I took this scoop in my hand home with me. Surely, it’s worth nothing.
Yet, what if I took it to the bank?“Away with this” they’d say.
Still, with enough of it, and in the right environment, to the right buyer, that’s value, worth spending money on.
That definitely should get me thinking. What’s my trash? Is it value? Do I have enough of it? Is it well packaged? And do I know who will find it useful?
Only one thing comes to my mind: Nothing on earth is useless if positioned right.
I wouldn’t be writing this, if this lesson was relevant to only me. But what’s your trash? Do you see it? What is it worth? Who would find it valuable?
By-Products
One of the finest lines in creativity I have read came from the book Rework, written by the founders of the project management app Basecamp, Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hannson, is this:When you make something, you always make something else. You can’t make just one thing. Everything has a by-product. Observant and creative business minds spot these by-products and see opportunities.
See, I stopped there that morning to check out the mulch largely because since reading those lines I have decided to pay closer attention to things around me.
They go on, in the book:
The lumber industry sells what used to be waste — sawdust, chips, and shredded wood — for a pretty profit. You’ll find these by-products in synthetic fireplace logs, concrete, ice strengtheners, mulch, particleboard, fuel, and more.
And yes, the mulch at the garden is a by-product from a tree’s death — dead leaves, broken pieces of it’s limbs, wood chips, and others. So in a sense, out of death has come life, if you see it — the packaged trash is sold to gardeners and that puts food on someone’s table, helping someone make a living.
