Did you know? You have a garden in your mind. It’s possible to plant ideas like seeds and watch them grow as you water them everyday. Fred Rogers, creator, showrunner, and host of the preschool television series Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, puts it more beautifully:

You can grow ideas in your mind. You can think about things and make believe things and that’s like growing something of your own.

fred rogers

It’s basically like gardening, and it’s no trivial pastime. It’s more than the growing of plants. It’s actually the expression of desire.

Have you ever wondered why certain thoughts are more recurring than others? It’s worth examining why they’re around frequently and under what conditions they tend to pop up the most.

Ideas, like plants, can be dormant in certain seasons. They’re waiting to be activated.

Author Olivia Laing states that gardening resets your perception of time and space. It’s a completely different world that pushes aside the constant rush of our daily lives. She also points that patience plays a key role when seeing something grow.

Gardening situates you in a different kind of time, the antithesis of the agitating present of social media. Time becomes circular, not chronological; minutes stretch into hours; some actions don’t bear fruit for decades.

olivia laing

Hence, a garden in your mind requires you to disconnect from the business-focused productivity-obsessed culture. It’s mandatory to stop scrolling every social media channel and search for ideas that nurture you in the analogue world: going out for walks, visiting galleries or museums, practising the art of conversation.

This is not a new idea, but it’s easy to forget: you become what you consume. When planting a garden, you have to be selective on the kind of ‘plants’ you have around.

What would you like to plant today in the garden of your mind?