A short podcast mini-chapter ("Goodness Gardens") by Brian Johnson that uses the garden metaphor to advise readers to cultivate positive thoughts and behaviors and remove 'weed' thoughts (anger, fear, greed, etc.). It recommends intentionally planting seeds of joy, love, kindness, patience, courage, creativity, and enthusiasm, and cites related self-development works as further reading.
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson More Wisdom in Less Time this is a mini chapter from Brian's book A Philosopher's Notes. You can find it on Amazon.
Goodness Gardens let's say you want to create a beautiful garden. You pull the weeds, till the soil, and plant and tend the seeds of the flowers you'd like to see one day bloom. Nice. If we want to create a beautiful life, we've got to treat our minds and lives with the same care we would that garden, pulling out the weed thoughts and behaviors and only planting the seeds we want to see come to fruition. In other words, if you want a life filled with joy, love, appreciation, kindness, generosity, wisdom, patience, courage, creativity, and enthusiasm, plant those seeds. To think you're going to get that goodness when you're constantly sowing the seeds of anger, fear, greed, impatience, laziness, half assedness, entitlement, and whininess. Just isn't very wise, eh? So what seeds are you planting, O gardener? Footnote here this metaphor is common throughout the self dev literature. Two of my favorite sources are Robin Sharma's the Monk who Sold His Ferrari, a fun novel all about creating an extraordinary life, and Pema Chodron's the Places that Scare Great Buddhist Wisdom. Philosopher's notes on both.
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