Is it possible to force spring? I didn’t think so, but the other day as I was running through the park I came across some branches that had been blown down in the storm. They looked like they’d fallen from some fruit tree, cherry or plum.
I picked them up and continued my jog (looking mighty silly, I’m sure, running with a handful of twigs).
“What are you going to do with those?” Carol asked.
“Put them in water and see what happens,” I said.
Not much did happen. But in a couple days I got some green sprigs where there had been just nubs of brown and in couple more days, little white blossoms started budding on the branches. Wow, I thought. Instant spring. Just add water.
“You forced them,” someone explained to me. “You forced the flowers to bloom.” I hadn’t heard that word before, but yes, I did force them. And it made me think of other things you can force, like a smile when you don’t feel like it, or a kind thought when your mind is a gray blank.
Forcing something usually has an ugly connotation. Not here. Not with my bit of spring. “Act as if,” was the way Norman Vincent Peale put it. Act hopeful when you’re not, act up when you’re down. The heart of positive thinking. Do it with enough conviction and you can get, well…instant spring!
Rick Hamlin is the executive editor at GUIDEPOSTS.
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