Why Be A Bamboo, When You Can Be A Honeysuckle
Honey For The Heart - 11
A Drizzle of Raw Honey 🍯
In this constant race to outshine, outperform, and outsmart, we’re getting entangled in a tenacious web. In our relentless pursuit of success, we’ve begun to measure everything — including ourselves — through the lens of comparison. What once belonged to high-pressure offices — politics, rivalry, one-upmanship — has quietly seeped into the very spaces meant to nurture: schools, hospitals, even homes. Children barely learning to tie their shoelaces are already being told to ace races. Be the best. Come first. Make it big. But no one’s asking — at what cost? Somewhere along the way, we stopped growing together and started trimming others just to appear taller. And as grown-ups, busy upping our own game, what are we really teaching the ones watching us quietly? That to rise, you must push someone down? That cleverness outweighs kindness? Maybe the answers lie in the harder questions. Or maybe… just maybe… they lie with two old friends in the Hundred Acre Wood, sitting in silence beside a honey pot — ready to remind us of something we’ve forgotten…how to draw bees and not flies if we need honey! 🌼🐝
One soft-salmony evening, Pooh and Piglet sat beside the old log, a honey pot between them. The gentle sounds of the Hundred Acre Wood rose and fell around their shared silence.
Pooh had been quieter than usual. Not the kind of quiet where one wonders where the next beehive might be — but the kind that feels like a small thorn lodged deep in the chest.
“What’s bothering you, Pooh?” Piglet asked, brushing a crumb of honey from his friend’s fur.
Pooh sighed. “Piglet… do you ever feel like no matter how much you try to grow, someone’s always waiting to remind you — you’re not enough?”
Piglet chuckled. “Oh yes, all the time. It’s easier to put someone in the spot than to stand in your own shadow.”
Pooh nodded slowly. “Like pointing at the limp in my step… while ignoring the thorns poking out from their own words.”
Piglet giggled softly. “Or laughing at my runny snoot just so no one sees their tail all tangled up.”
Pooh dipped his paw in honey and watched it swirl. “I’ve noticed, Piglet… some folks don’t want to water their own roots. They just trim others’ branches to feel taller.”
Piglet looked up, thoughtful. “That’s not very honey-hearted of them.”
“No,” Pooh agreed. “But maybe… deep down, they’re just scared. That if they really looked inside, they wouldn’t like what they’d find.”
Piglet tilted his head. “So what do we do, Pooh?”
Pooh smiled softly, offering Piglet the last spoonful of honey. “We tend our own garden. We pull out our own thorns. And if someone throws mud — we plant a honeysuckle there instead.”
Piglet took the honey with a tiny nod. “That way, we draw bees… not flies.”
Far on the horizon, the Sun had long gone home. The pink sky had folded into a deep inky velvet, stitched with a thousand quiet stars.
And below, two more twinkled — not trying to outshine anyone, but simply shining… to remind the world how.
“After all,” said Pooh, “when you grow to be true — not just to be seen — goodness shines through… and doesn’t need cheers to glow.”
