by sapphirelion » Sun Jun 17, 2018 11:45 am
username; sapphirelion
name; Clara
gender; female
prompt;
Why do you give flowers to strangers?
Why do I give flowers to strangers? Hmm...
Well let me ask you a question, have you ever looked at a flower and thought ‘wow, what an ugly flower’? Probably not.
That’s how we should look at everyone. No matter how different each of us look (or smell), each one of us are beautiful in our own way and everyone needs a reminder now and again. So I go out at the end of my day, purchase a bunch of roses (or whatever flower is available), and take the roses with me out on a walk. And each day the place is different so that I hopefully see new people. Sometimes if I’m passing a store, I’ll even stop inside the store to give the workers and shoppers a rose.
So yeah, as I see people I walk up to them, hand them a rose, and tell them that just like the rose they are absolutely beautiful and they should never doubt it no matter what. And then I walk away. Most people are too shocked to say anything so I get away just fine, but sometimes I’m the one who gets shocked.
This one time I walked up to two girls handed them each a rose,told them that they are beautiful, and turned to go hand out my next rose when they stopped me. The one girl had happy tears in her eyes and the other girl asked me why I was going around and telling people what I tell them because she had seen me do this before, apparently. So I explained that when I was younger I was really upset one day and just started balling my eyes out on a park bench. A small child saw me and asked why I was crying. I tried to smile and hide my tears from him but I failed miserably, so I told him that someone had been really mean to me that day and hurt my feelings by saying I was ugly. And I believed them. Frowning the little boy looked around us and he said he’d be right back. I wiped away some more of my tears and he was back. He stood in front of me with a handful of different flowers and asked me ‘what do you think these flowers are? Ugly or beautiful?’ And of course I said they were beautiful because what flower isn’t? He then handed them to me and said, ‘but aren’t they different flowers? Is even one of them an ugly flower?’ ‘No’ I said, ‘they are different but they are all beautiful.’ That’s when he said ‘and so are you, just like a flower each one of us looks different but we are all beautiful, some of us just need a reminder from time to time.’ That’s when I decided to chose to change my view of myself, because if a little boy could so simply put the thing that puzzles most people, why can’t I? A couple of weeks after that I saw someone else who doubted their beauty, I picked a flower from the ground and told them what the little boy had told me. It gave them a smile and reminded me of how I felt when he had first told me. So I decided from then on that I would spread the little boy’s simply put knowledge to help others that are struggling or even just needed a reminder. After telling the girls my story, they asked me if they could help me hand out the rest of my roses. I was stunned but not about to turn away others who wanted to help people. So I coached them a little bit and just let them go. They were so eager to share that so many more people than I had ever seen were crying by the time they were done speaking with them. It was amazing! I hope that I am able to encounter more people who are willing to step out and help those around them like the little boy and those two girls.