Dandelions, Distractions: Our Yard & Life Deceivers

A few days ago, I noticed that our yard - front and back - was over taken by our friends to the right, dandelions. It was a sea of yellow, flowering dandelions. 

As the indoor person I am, I looked at them and was pleasantly reminded that Spring had finally sprung in Chicagoland. My husband, the "award-winning landscape architect,"saw them as a nuisance that had "invaded" our yard. He even went so far as to jokingly blame it on neighbors whose yards were equally yellow since he'd actually done lots of work to prevent them in our yard over the years.

Inside my head, I was slightly amused at the difference in perspective on them. I've loved dandelions my whole life and my dad despised them in our yard when I was a kid.  Now I'm married to a guy who feels the same. I used to rue the day my dad insisted we pull them up by the roots, by hand. Because I was the oldest, "we" always really meant me.

Why did we have to rid our yards of dandelions? Are they really that bad? I joked with my husband how they were so cute, yadda, yadda, yadda.

He finally said, "They may be cute but they kill your grass and plants. So they have to go."

As I drove to work one morning this week, I had an epiphany. 

Dandelions are like distractions in our lives.

Beautiful.

Tempting.

Contagious.

Plentiful. 

Deceptive

And if not eradicated or contained quickly - distractions can over take your life.

It's true. 

Each day I wake with my health and hearty list of things to do, I find myself fighting distractions. Constantly "weeding" out the activities that do not add value to my life, personally or professionally. Intentionally selecting "what stays" and "what goes" is a key part of my every day, every hour some days. Most often, I must take a hands on approach to removing distractions which is eerily like removing dandelions from your yard. 

You can't just mow them away.

You can't pluck them by the green alone.

You have to get on your hands and knees and dig your fingers beneath the surface of the ground and pull them out by their roots.

Then and only then can you be certain they are gone.

So I ask... what are the dandelions in your life? Do you even recognize them? 

And most importantly, are you prepared to weed them out and get on with doing what you need to do?