Sometimes even those of us who should know better can fall into a pattern of waiting for others to act. A few years ago, I hired someone to take care of my yard. It’s not much of a yard, and I can’t see it anyway, so my primary concern is to keep from getting cited for city code violations. That’s what I told him. If I don’t get letters from the city, I’m happy.

Unfortunately, he took me a little too literally. I also said that if anything else needed to be done to please let me know and then do it. I will pay any additional cost. That he hasn’t gotten. Do I need a new service? Maybe, but I like the price and I haven’t gotten any letters.

As a consequence, I often run into branches sticking out too far or some shrub or unwanted plant out of control. If I ask him, he’ll fix it, but I have to remember to ask, and so what usually happens is nothing but me running into branches and complaining.

There’s a simple solution here if I don’t want to fire him, and I finally did it. I bought a pair of pruning shears. My vision is not that great, but I can certainly find the base of a small branch and cut it off. I just need to be careful that my fingers stay well away from the blades.

I found this to be surprisingly satisfying. Instead of complaining that the simple job was not done, I took two minutes and did it. This morning when I returned from a morning walk, I discovered two or three more that needed cutting and did that too. Why had I put up with this frustration for so many years? I fell into the trap of “I need.” I need someone else to do that. I’m not sure how that happened. I don’t normally think that way. I guess the thought process was that the yard guy does yard stuff, so I need him to do this. Maybe he should, but it wasn’t necessary.

Sometimes all we need to solve our problems is just a little initiative. Less than $20 and two minutes and my problem is gone. Sometimes we need help, but sometimes we need to just do it.