STOWAWAYS

WEEK OF 4/20/26

Originally posted 6.26.25

 

I do some of my best thinking in the garden.  

For many of you reading this, the gym is your escape.  It’s where you do your best thinking.

It’s my escape too, but it’s also my office!  So I tend to find my escape in other areas as well.  Since moving to Mt. Airy, it’s been my garden.

I spent over 15 years of my life as a professional landscaper so I’m not a stranger to the outdoors.  And between my professional experience in the ring as well as in the garden, sometimes my wires get crossed.  The parallels between the two are fundamental, really.

As a professional landscaper, especially in high end design, cutting corners is not an option.  Oftentimes when weeding people tend to just weed around the plants they have.  Because those are the weeds you see.  However, weeds also grow underneath and within the plants themselves.  And over time, you tend to get weeds that grow very, very well and very, very sneakily like this.  Typically these weeds even resemble the plant they’re invading because, well, survival of the fittest and all that!

I call these “Stowaways.”  They are easy to miss, because they hide in plain sight and often resemble the very thing they’re hiding in.

So anyways, I got to thinking – what kind of “stowaway” thoughts and behaviors do we overlook?  Thoughts and behaviors that resemble healthy, positive habits but are, in their nature, invasive and against the order of our own internal gardens?

For example, I see this a lot in sparring and rolling, especially in newer students.  They pursue “toughness” as if it’s a badge of honor to take a beating or go really, really hard.  And while toughness and physical intensity are important, if not essential qualities for a fighter, they are actually more like assets in an emergency fund that you never want to tap into.

So today I ask you.. What stowaways are in your garden?  What invasive behaviors, thoughts, or qualities hide in plain sight because, on the surface, they resemble the very things you seek to cultivate and grow?