Be like a sunflower

….that morning I stood in a field full of sunflowers, camera in my hands, silence all around me….
It was early, the kind of early I love….when the world still feels soft and honest….

And there they were.

Hundreds, thousands of sunflowers.
All turned in the same direction….

Watching the sun.

I stood there for a while….observing. Feeling. Listening to that quiet voice that sometimes speaks when I slow down enough…..

They all knew where to look.

Not because there was no darkness.
Not because storms never came.
Not because life was always kind.

But because they were built to follow the light…..

And I thought to myself…
Why don’t we do the same?

We live in a world where pain exists. Disappointment exists. Loss exists. Bad days exist. I know it. I’ve lived it. I still live it sometimes. I am not blind to reality. I don’t believe in pretending that everything is perfect….

This is not about denying darkness.
This is not about forcing positivity….
This is not about lying to ourselves.

Bad things happen…..

But still, the sunflower turns….

….It doesn’t stay frozen because a storm might come. It doesn’t question whether the sun will return tomorrow.

It simply turns toward the light…..
Again and again.
Every single day.

And maybe that is its secret.

Maybe growth is not about having a perfect life.
Maybe peace is not about avoiding pain….

Maybe it’s simply about choosing where we turn.

I’ve spent many mornings of my life chasing the sunrise. Walking in silence, breathing in the cold air, waiting for that first warm light to touch the world. I never thought of it this way before, but maybe I’ve been practicing this all along.

Turning toward the sun….

Not because I don’t see the darkness.
But because I choose not to live inside it….

There were times in my life when it would have been easier to stay turned toward disappointment. Toward self-doubt. Toward the voices that say, “It’s not possible.” I know those voices well. They have been part of my journey….

But something inside me always wanted to look for the light.
Even if it was small.
Even if it was far away.
Even if it felt weak.

And every time I turned toward it, something inside me grew….

Just a little.

Sunflowers don’t control the weather.
They don’t control the length of the day.
They don’t control the storms….

But they still choose the direction of their growth.

And that choice changes everything….

Sometimes people think that looking for the good means you are ignoring reality. That choosing hope means you are naive. That focusing on light means you are pretending darkness doesn’t exist.

But that’s not true.

Where we turn, we grow….

If I turn toward fear, fear grows.
If I turn toward pain, pain grows.
If I turn toward what’s missing, that emptiness becomes bigger.

But if I turn toward light…
Even slowly…
Even on the hardest days…
Something warm begins to grow inside me again.

Standing there in that field, I realized something simple.

Sunflowers don’t overthink.
They don’t argue with reality.
They don’t wait for the perfect conditions.

They just follow what gives them life.

And maybe that’s enough…..

Maybe I don’t need to solve everything.
Maybe I don’t need to understand everything.
Maybe I don’t need to control everything.

Maybe I just need to keep turning.

Toward what feels warm.
Toward what feels kind.
Toward what feels true.

Like the sunflowers…..

Even on cloudy days, the sun is still there.
And somehow, they still know where to turn.

I want to live like that.

I know darkness exists.
But I choose, again and again, to follow the sun….