Day Sixty-Seven · Waiting for a Flower Bud to Bloom

The gardenia on the windowsill has formed a bud.
Greenish and tight, like clenched fists. I check it every morning; it’s still the same, tightly closed. I looked again this morning, still the same.
I started to feel a little anxious.
Clearly, the leaves are green, the sunlight is enough, and I’ve watered it, but it just won’t open. I leaned in closer and saw a thin crack at the top of the bud, with white petals peeking out little by little, like a baby opening its eyes.
It turns out it’s been blooming all along. I just couldn’t see it.
Waiting during a downturn is like waiting for a flower to bloom.
Every day you open your account, the numbers are still there, not rising, even falling. You think the market is sleeping, you think your judgment was wrong, you think it will never come back. But that’s not true. The market is just slowly brewing, like a bud accumulating strength.
The crack you can’t see is its effort to open. The tighter you watch, the slower it blooms. When you do other things, it suddenly blossoms when you’re not paying attention.