We used to have an apple tree in our garden, but last year I had it cut down.
One of our elderly neighbours had convinced himself that it was undermining his shed.
There were bigger and wider trees around, some of them in his own garden, but he'd decided it was our relatively small tree that was doing the damage. I got a tree surgeon out to have a look and he doubted that our tree was the problem, but in the interests of inter-neighbour harmony I had it taken out. In some ways I really liked the tree, particularly the blossom in Spring, but being a lazy sort, I never really made the most of the apples and the majority of them used to end up in the compost anyway. Also, the tree was close to the house, and the branches were so overgrown it was hard to get round the outside of the house or mow the lawn with it there, so this all influenced me in having it taken out.
Another thing that influenced me was that a few years before, the elderly neighbour had put a cat scarer in his garden, and although he couldn't hear it, it emitted a high pitched whine that made it impossible to sit in peace in my own garden, and when I approached him about it, even though he couldn't hear it, he took my word for it and took it down.
I tried to take a similar approach to the apple tree situation. It was causing him stress, and even though I couldn't see the problem, I decided to take away the cause of the stress. I figured it was the right thing to do.
I found out yesterday that the old man died in March. I bumped into his wife in the street, and she told me. And it made me feel sad. But I was kind of glad that I'd handled the apple tree thing sympathetically, because from a selfish point of view, it's always better to find out that people have died if you haven't had an unresolved conflict with them prior to it happening.
And it made me reflect on the nature of stress, and the way I handle things. I see apple trees everywhere, and often. like my former neighbour, I get fixated on them, and I think they're undermining my shed. And although sometimes they might be, more often than not, they're not. And I can't always go to the owners of the apple trees and have them cut down, and even if I could, it wouldn't always be the right thing to do. Also, it would be probably be easier just to stop thinking about the tree and the shed, and to focus on something else, because the world is bigger than trees and sheds and what goes on in my back garden.
And I could do well to remember that when I'm stressing about not having a lawnmower, or about the cooker having blown up, or the front wheel of the car having a dent in it, because these are all passing things, and in the end they are all small things too, and not worth making a drama out of.
I've been working with some young people lately, and when I get stressed their advice seems to be to forget about the drama of the situation, and just to be nicer to the people in the story. I'm fond of telling them that they don't know what their talking about, because they're young, and also that it's much easier to give advice to people when you only have the facts and none of the emotions, but I think they just might have a point.
As Ferris Bueller used to say 'Life moves fast, if you don't stop to take a look around once in a while, you could miss it'. Of course he said that when he was a teenager, and he's a middle aged man by now, but I wonder if he still thinks the same thing. If I could ask him what he thinks now, he might say this.
'If you thought life moved fast when you were 17, you should see how fast it goes when you're 44! So don't waste time arguing about apple trees, car wheels, cookers, lawnmowers and sheds. Because in the end none of those things matter. Oh, and one more thing. Be nice to each other!'
Or something like that.....
One of our elderly neighbours had convinced himself that it was undermining his shed.
There were bigger and wider trees around, some of them in his own garden, but he'd decided it was our relatively small tree that was doing the damage. I got a tree surgeon out to have a look and he doubted that our tree was the problem, but in the interests of inter-neighbour harmony I had it taken out. In some ways I really liked the tree, particularly the blossom in Spring, but being a lazy sort, I never really made the most of the apples and the majority of them used to end up in the compost anyway. Also, the tree was close to the house, and the branches were so overgrown it was hard to get round the outside of the house or mow the lawn with it there, so this all influenced me in having it taken out.
Another thing that influenced me was that a few years before, the elderly neighbour had put a cat scarer in his garden, and although he couldn't hear it, it emitted a high pitched whine that made it impossible to sit in peace in my own garden, and when I approached him about it, even though he couldn't hear it, he took my word for it and took it down.
I tried to take a similar approach to the apple tree situation. It was causing him stress, and even though I couldn't see the problem, I decided to take away the cause of the stress. I figured it was the right thing to do.
I found out yesterday that the old man died in March. I bumped into his wife in the street, and she told me. And it made me feel sad. But I was kind of glad that I'd handled the apple tree thing sympathetically, because from a selfish point of view, it's always better to find out that people have died if you haven't had an unresolved conflict with them prior to it happening.
And it made me reflect on the nature of stress, and the way I handle things. I see apple trees everywhere, and often. like my former neighbour, I get fixated on them, and I think they're undermining my shed. And although sometimes they might be, more often than not, they're not. And I can't always go to the owners of the apple trees and have them cut down, and even if I could, it wouldn't always be the right thing to do. Also, it would be probably be easier just to stop thinking about the tree and the shed, and to focus on something else, because the world is bigger than trees and sheds and what goes on in my back garden.
And I could do well to remember that when I'm stressing about not having a lawnmower, or about the cooker having blown up, or the front wheel of the car having a dent in it, because these are all passing things, and in the end they are all small things too, and not worth making a drama out of.
I've been working with some young people lately, and when I get stressed their advice seems to be to forget about the drama of the situation, and just to be nicer to the people in the story. I'm fond of telling them that they don't know what their talking about, because they're young, and also that it's much easier to give advice to people when you only have the facts and none of the emotions, but I think they just might have a point.
As Ferris Bueller used to say 'Life moves fast, if you don't stop to take a look around once in a while, you could miss it'. Of course he said that when he was a teenager, and he's a middle aged man by now, but I wonder if he still thinks the same thing. If I could ask him what he thinks now, he might say this.
'If you thought life moved fast when you were 17, you should see how fast it goes when you're 44! So don't waste time arguing about apple trees, car wheels, cookers, lawnmowers and sheds. Because in the end none of those things matter. Oh, and one more thing. Be nice to each other!'
Or something like that.....
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