EoG:TLC

Today my mom had me edge the sidewalks to our lawn. Something she said that caught my attention was that the lawn needed some “TLC”: tender, loving care. And it got me thinking about TLC in general, and how giving the lawn TLC is similar to giving a person TLC.

The first thing I observed was that without TLC, a lawn is a mess. Besides ours, there are a couple lawns in the neighborhood that just don’t get very much care. They look like jungles, complete with entire packs of unidentified wild species. Similarly, people who are generally neglected by others wind up with all kinds of messes in their lives that they can’t deal with on their own.

My second and even more obvious observation was that TLC takes a lot of work! From the time my mom and I bought the edger at about 10, I was working until 5 in the afternoon. Nonstop work, from putting the thing together to running the edger to shoveling overgrowth away from the sidewalk to throwing the overgrowth and accompanying mud into a hole in our yard to cleaning up the sidewalk afterwards. Similarly, to show someone some tender, loving care involves a lot of very involved, very dirty work. Plan extra time for TLC, otherwise you’ll be too busy to get involved in anyone else’s life.

That leads into my third observation, which is that TLC involves a degree of personal sacrifice. In order to edge the yard, I put myself to all kinds of inconvenience like the possibility of sunburn, not getting to sit on my lazy bum all day like I had wanted, skipping lunch, and working by myself all day. In the same manner, if you want to administer any degree of TLC to someone, be prepared to inconvenience yourself and even potentially do things that are very hard or detrimental to you.

A slightly more challenging analogy is that TLC is most beneficial where it is least deserved. Our lawn hadn’t had the sidewalks edged in years. It’s not a very nice-looking lawn. There were plenty of other lawns that would have been much more pleasant to work with: smaller, less to do, better maintained. But edging those sidewalks wouldn’t have made nearly as big an impact as it did on ours. Similarly, some people are easy to offer your love and care to. But bear in mind that it’s probably the less attractive, more annoying type of people that could use the TLC more, and that giving them the care we all need will probably make a way bigger difference in their life.

A fifth analogy is that no matter how much TLC you pour into a lawn, it won’t look perfect right away. Because right now, despite all the work I did, the sidewalk still has dirt stains and the edges look really goofy. It probably won’t be until the first rain that it really looks right. And some people won’t like what you’re doing to the lawn because it looks funny until the rain comes, which is completely out of your control. My dad and brother both thought the yard looked really weird when I was done. Similarly, when you’re putting care into a person, you won’t see a perfected and encouraged individual right away. Sometimes some other things have to happen first before you start to see any results.

Although I could make countless more analogies, I will conclude with this one: TLC is our duty. I was maintaining the lawn not only because my mom asked me to but also because our landlord EXPECTS us to maintain our lawn and keep it looking nice. The same way, we should all be involved with loving and caring for our fellow human beings because it’s our duty to do so. Almost every single religion commands its followers to love the people around them, and even atheists believe in the “common good”, so why are so few people involved in caring for their fellow man?

I challenge you. I challenge me. How much TLC do you give out on an average day?

Thanks for reading.