Be nice!

While walking down the street in Baku, I noticed a weird tree. Squeezed into couple inches of a dirt hole on the asphalt road, the tree had iron spikes sticking out of the trunk and branches. I made about three turns around the tree scared to even touch it. As if I would hurt the tree if I would touch its wounds. A man passing by saw my amazement and said: "I grew up seeing this tree every day. These are actually communication lines buried under the road. The roots of the tree twisted and turned it for making enough space for itself. While the trunk was growing it squeezed the lines and lines broke making these spikes." 

Perhaps one of the reasons why I surprised was that all these spikes did not stop the tree from growing, branching out and greening every spring. I froze in my place for couple of moments thinking...this tree outgrow all its barriers. These lines made hundreds of holes in the body of the tree hurting it for so many years but it did not stop it from growing and greening. When I saw this quote posted by Artidote I remembered that spiky tree that became the example for me and a good lesson. No matter how many spikes come out of you hurting, you keep growing even if it hurts. The post was quoting Ram Dass, the American Spiritualist:

"When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’ That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are." —Ram Dass 

Is not it enough to remind us that each of us walk with many kinds of spikes sticking out of our souls. Can we be nicer to each other and understand and empathize while appreciating their existence in any form they survived to?