Creating A Healthy Habit

A young gardener inherited a beautiful orchard from her grandmother. The trees were healthy, the soil was rich, and a narrow stone path wound through the rows.Before leaving, her grandmother gave her only one instruction:
"Walk the path every morning."
The gardener laughed. "That's all?"
"That's all."
For the first week she walked faithfully. Some mornings she admired blossoms. Some mornings she noticed insects chewing leaves before they became a problem. Sometimes she found nothing at all.Soon the walks felt unnecessary."I have real work to do," she thought.So she skipped one morning.Nothing happened.The orchard looked just as beautiful.She skipped another.Still nothing.Weeks later she realized weeds had begun growing between the stones. They were easy enough to step over."No hurry."The next month the weeds hid burrows where rabbits nibbled the roots. Branches rubbed together in the wind until they split. A sick tree infected another before she noticed.Now each day demanded hours of work.Exhausted, she remembered her grandmother's advice and almost grew angry."How could a simple walk have prevented all this?"
An old traveler passing by said,"The walk was never for the path."
"It was for the orchard?" replied the gardener.
"No."
"It was for me?"
The traveler smiled."When you stopped walking, you did not merely miss what was happening in the orchard. You slowly became the kind of person who no longer noticed small things."Years later the orchard flourished again.Visitors often asked her secret.She never spoke of fertilizer or pruning.She only said,"Every morning, I walk the path. Most days it changes nothing. But the days it matters, it matters because of all the days it seemed not to."