The Lotus

There are a lot of directions you can go with when you’re building something new. Predictable. Safe.

I didn’t want those. Instead, I chose the lotus flower.

Why? Because the lotus doesn’t pretend that the mud isn’t there. It grows despite it. Not just that. It thrives off the mud.

Each day it rises like a phoenix out of murky water. Conditions that would choke out most things. Not only that, but it also emerges untouched. Unaffected. Intact.

Each morning it opens. Each night it closes. And then it starts over the next day.

Not linear growth, but persistence and resilience.

We talk about resilience as if it comes with a clean arc and an obvious lesson at the end. Sometimes that’s not true. Sometimes resilience just exists.

Sometimes resilience is something you got through that you didn’t ask for. Sometimes it is a burden. Sometimes it’s just showing up the next day. No resolution. Just showing up.

The lotus doesn’t tiptoe around the mud. It rises through it. It doesn’t constantly reinvent itself. It just begins again.

We don’t talk about how many times we also need a reset. How many times we recalibrate or just keep going without an end in sight. But we open ourselves up to possibility.

The lotus doesn’t wait for perfect conditions. But it opens anyways.

This resonates with me. Because the work that I do – whether in the law or in other parts of my life – isn’t about pretending things are simple or necessarily straightforward. No, it’s about navigating the realities of the complexity of life, and still dusting myself off and moving forward.

Even when the weight of the mud feels heavy. Especially when the weight of the mud feels heavy.

It isn’t about being loud. And it rarely shows up the way that it’s expected.

The lotus doesn’t announce itself. It just rises. Again and again.