When you have a garden full of flowers, but also full of horrible and ugly weeds--poison hemlock, thistles, poison ivy--it is tempting to focus on the weeds to eradicate them, leaving just a garden of perfect beauty and safety.

But if you do so by setting your whole being against the existence of weeds, even if you reduce their number, you will always find more; there will always be more loathsome, hateful, horrible weeds. They sprout from between the irises, hide under the geraniums; the seeds lie dormant in the ground, are brought in by birds. Horrible weeds! The garden is trying to kill you.

And thus, even as the garden grows better, one's enjoyment diminishes. It seems that there is no point in having a garden at all. Maybe we should bulldoze it and fill it with concrete instead.

Or, maybe, pause now and then to notice that the flowers are there in abundance, and they're really quite lovely.