It’s not hard to see in real time what the environment around them does to living things. Every person who has had a houseplant, and maybe struggled with keeping it in the best condition, will know what I mean. Or grown anything in a pot, where you are responsible for its wellbeing. It may seem obvious but I’ll spell it out, because people remind me of plants with the same need for nourishment and optimal conditions for the best chance of a healthy life.

If you put a plant in a dark corner, a pot that’s too small and don’t give it water regularly, it starts to look haggard. Drained and tired, struggling to hold on and make the best of itself. It’s awful once you realise it’s your fault, but can be fixed. A new bigger pot, fresh earth, water, sunlight. And within a couple of days, it picks up, starts to look fresher and more vibrant. Signifying the conditions are suitable.

The same can be said of people, and any living animal or organism. If the conditions are just right, they can flourish and grow, and if the conditions are not, it can turn them into a tired, stressed, strained, possibly angry version of their former selves. There are internal as well as the external conditions to take into account as well like nutrients, exercise, light and sleep, but they all play a part. This is why when the environment around us is engineered to be stressful, with fear and compliance as a driver, it will have an effect. When they talk of shutting things down again, dimming the sun and restricting your food, water and energy, it starts a mental process that leads into the physical one.

So, it really does boggle my mind that so many people, teachers, parents, education authorities all at the same time just threw children mentally under the bus when it came to lockdowns. Don’t get me wrong, I am no fan of the education system, and believe they are indoctrination centres for the early stages of development. But to have the whole system reorganised in an instant pretty much, with the timetables and goalposts changed constantly, and disappointment and grief thrown in to boot, it was a lot from the get go. Emotional, educational and developmental disruption was obvious, which is why it astounded me so much to hear people minimise it, or plain dismiss it. ‘They are resilient’ we heard. I won’t lie, I was shocked and knew what would follow when it finally became too obvious to hide, that they weren’t all just going to bounce back, and weren’t just able to breeze through unscathed in mind, body and emotional development.

That bring me back to plants, seedlings, and small budding plants. When they are in that crucial stage of development, if there are extra stressful circumstances, like lack of water, infections, not enough food, light, or space, it can severely affect the overall development and growth. Some can overcome these extra conditions and then thrive, if they are temporary and then corrected. Not all though. But left in the small, overcrowded, sub-standard conditions, life can survive and struggle on, but in a very limited condition and certainly not all make it, and not many thrive. So, I keep this in mind when I think of people and society, and of the daily environment that surrounds us, and of the expectations placed upon everyone to thrive and survive within that. Making sure to take responsibility for those areas when it is within your capability and not leaving it to someone else, because they may be trying to use a one size fits all approach or are working to something that benefits them and their environment or situation. Be the master of your own destiny, as the saying goes…

(c) MKW Publishing