“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.” Alphonse Karr
So much more elegant than the “glass half empty/half full” saying, isn’t it? Yet it speaks to the same truth.
When I focus on the rose, suddenly the thorns just aren’t that big of a deal. An inconvenience, to be sure, perhaps even dangerous if I stop paying attention. But they are worth the price. The inconvenience. Because . . . oh, the beauty of the rose! The tight-fisted bud, pregnant with fragrance and beauty that is still hidden within the teasing display of outer petals. The joy of watching that bud bloom, slowly, spreading itself to drink in sunlight and dewdrops, and to give its nectar to the flying visitors that stop by for a drink. The heady fragrance of a fully-opened rose. And the bitter sweetness of watching the rose give its final gift, dropping its petals, to be gathered and used to provide fragrance to a room. Or left to provide nourishment for the soil, so that the next season’s blooms may be just as bountiful.
To think that I would miss all of this if, in a fast cost/benefit analysis, I decided that thorns made the roses more trouble than they are worth!