Out with the Old and In with What We Hope

We all have the same 168 hours per week to use. How we choose to use those hours make up our lives. It’s such an empowering thought to realize that we can choose what we want to remove and what we want to introduce into our days and into our lives.

One challenge that the Forest Service deals with on an ongoing basis is the threat of non-native plants and animals moving into new ecosystems, and since they don’t fit in those ecosystems, they don’t have natural predators. This means that so often they spread very quickly, crowding out the native plants and animals that are vital to the success of these environments. And generally these non-native plants don’t provide many ecosystem-services for the organisms in these environments because the organisms haven’t evolved with the non-native plants.

So the Forest Service relies on crews and volunteers to remove non-native plants, which is a huge undertaking. If you’ve ever tried to rip out Himalayan blackberries for example, you know that nearly no thickness of gloves can protect you from those horrendous spikes. And there are certainly success stories or removing non-native plants from large swaths of land.

But it’s never enough to simply remove the undesired plants because the bare ground are perfect for more non-native plants to jump right back into the cleared ground. So that means that the specialists who plan these volunteer removal efforts also have to plant the desired plants right after the non-native plants are removed. Otherwise, removing the non-native plants is essentially a waste of time and effort.

I’ve certainly learned that this concept holds true in a much wide context than just the plant kingdom. When I’ve wanted to make changes in my life—weeding out bad habits, removing undesirable character foibles, etc.—it’s never been enough for me to just try to remove the undesirable attribute or habit. I also have had to replace those with good habits and attributes. Just like with changing our food habits, if we remove sweets from our diet, we need to replace those calories with something good or else we’re going to get awfully hungry and that hunger might lead to worse food habits.

We all have the same 168 hours per week to use. How we choose to use those hours make up our lives. It’s such an empowering thought to realize that we can choose what we want to remove and what we want to introduce into our days and into our lives.