First, understand: the soil chooses youas much as you choose it. That cubicle,that town you swore you'd leave by twenty,that relationship you fell into like a pothole—these are your growing conditions.Stop calling them mistakes.Call them earth.
The bloom-where-planted people thinkit's about gratitude. It's not.It's about the audacity of dandelionsin sidewalk cracks, the spite of lifethat says "I'll photosynthesize here,in this impossible place, just to provethe universe wrong about limitations."
Some days you'll be orchid in a parking lot.Some days, cactus in a rainforest.Adapt or die sounds harsh until you realizeadaptation is just another wordfor creative stubbornness.
Instructions: Grow where you're thrown.Grow angry. Grow tender. Grow thornsif you need them. Grow flowers if you don't.Grow deep before you grow tall.Grow in the wrong season.Grow because the alternativeis letting this place win.
And when they say you've bloomedin the wrong garden, smile.You're the only one who knowshow deep your roots go.