When I look out the window in my home office, I look straight at a massive oak tree that stands in someone else’s backyard a few houses away.
It strikes me that some master planner 12 years ago decided that, while everything else in the vicinity was to be clear cut to make way for our neighborhood, this oak tree (and the pine tree directly behind it) was worth saving.
I wonder what it was that made the planner save the tree. Was it a practical decision – the tree was just too large to cut down economically? Was it a sentimental decision – the tree had been there so long it just had to stay? Was it luck – since the tree grew exactly in that spot it didn’t need to be cut down in order to build the homes around it? Or was the tree simply unique – a treasure found amid a forest of seemingly ordinary pine trees?
When planning for change, it is easy to have the mindset of looking for things that need fixing. It’s equally important to watch out for things that you can and should save.
Inquiry:Â What is your oak tree?