The View from the Lot Next Door: Choosing Growth Over Standards
Click play below to see the trees I'm talking about.
Looking at this view, it’s easy to see the 'unpolished' parts, but my eyes always go to the green. What is one area of your life that might look 'messy' to others, but holds something beautiful you’ve planted yourself? I’d love to hear your story in the comments.
I have a confession to make. If you follow my social media or read my stories, you’ve likely noticed a distinct lack of "home tour" photos or snapshots of my daily physical surroundings here in Honduras. It isn’t an accident, and it isn’t because I’m trying to be mysterious. It’s because my world doesn’t fit the "standards" of my target audience in the US. In a world of curated aesthetics, manicured lawns, and white-picket-fence expectations, my reality looks, well, unpolished.
For a long time, I felt that I had to keep my physical space hidden to maintain my brand. I thought that to speak about high-fantasy worlds and modern life lessons, my own background needed to look like a Pinterest board. But today, I’m looking out at the lot beside where I live, and I’m realizing that there is a story here that is far more important than any filtered image could ever be.
The Trees We Planted
Right next to my home is a lot that most people would see as "difficult." It’s uneven, the ground is rough, and let’s be honest, it’s a bit messy. It isn’t the kind of view you see in travel brochures. But right in the middle of that raw landscape, there are palm and banana trees. They are vibrant, they are green, and they are ours.
We planted those trees. We put them in the dirt, watered them, and watched them take hold in a place that didn’t necessarily look ready to support them. Every time I look at them, I’m reminded of a fundamental truth that I often discuss in my "mind over matter" frameworks: growth doesn’t wait for a perfect environment. If we wait for everything to be "up to standard" before we start building, we will never plant anything.
These trees are more than just foliage; they are a physical manifestation of intention. When we first looked at that lot, we could have chosen to see only the debris or the lack of order. Instead, we chose to see potential. We chose to plant something that would grow tall and provide fruit and shade, regardless of what the ground around it looked like. This is the ultimate mindset shift, moving from a focus on the environment to a focus on the effort.
Bridging the Gap: Granny’s Wisdom in a Modern World
As I stand here watching the palm fronds catch the breeze, I can’t help but think about the lessons I learned through crochet and cooking. My grandmother, the woman who taught me how to turn a single thread into something beautiful, never waited for the "best" yarn or a professional kitchen to create magic. She worked with what she had, where she was.
In her world, a mistake in a crochet pattern wasn’t a reason to throw the whole project away; it was just a part of the texture. If the kitchen was small or the ingredients were simple, the meal was still an act of love. She understood something that we often forget in the age of social media: the value of a thing isn’t in how it looks to a stranger, but in the life that is lived within it. Sharing my world with you means bridging that gap between the wisdom of the past and the reality of my present.
Granny didn't have a "target audience." She had a family to feed and a home to keep warm. Her "aesthetic" was comfort and resilience. When I find myself worrying that my video of the lot next door isn't "good enough" for my US-based followers, I hear her voice. She reminds me that the most important thing I can offer isn't a pretty picture, but a true story. The trees represent that bridge, a living connection between the traditions of my heritage and the unique path I am walking now.
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The Standard of the Eye vs. The Standard of the Heart
Living as an expat has taught me that "standards" are often just cultural filters. In the US, the standard for beauty often involves order, symmetry, and cleanliness. But here, the standard is survival, resilience, and vitality. The lot next door might be "unpolished" by American standards, but to me, those trees represent a triumph of mindset.
When we focus on "mind over matter," we aren't ignoring the mess. We are simply choosing where to place our focus. If I spend my day looking at the debris or the uneven ground, I feel limited. But if I look at the banana trees we nurtured, I feel empowered. This is the essence of living in the moment. The moment is rarely perfect, but it is always real.
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There is a specific kind of freedom that comes from letting go of the need to be "standardized." When I stop trying to make my life look like a Tennessee suburb and start embracing the lush, wild growth of Honduras, I am able to live much more fully in the "now." Living in the moment isn't about ignoring the difficulties; it’s about acknowledging them and then deciding to plant something beautiful anyway.
An Interactive Mindset Shift
I want to challenge you to do something today. Take a look at your own surroundings, not through the lens of what you think others want to see, but through the lens of what you have actually built. We all have a "lot next door" in our lives, a part of our reality that we feel doesn't meet the world's standards.
What have you planted there? What growth have you nurtured in the middle of your own unpolished spaces? Is it a career you’ve built from scratch? A relationship you’ve tended to through difficult seasons? Or perhaps it’s just the quiet resilience of showing up every day when things are hard. That growth is your palm tree. It doesn't need a filtered background to be significant.
Think about the areas where you feel you are "failing" to meet a standard. Now, look closer. Is there something growing there that you've been overlooking because you were too busy looking at the "mess"? Empowerment starts with this simple shift in perspective. It’s about taking ownership of your space, no matter how unpolished it may be.
The Chronicles of the Real
As an author of fantasy, I spend a lot of time building worlds that are magical and otherworldly. But the older I get, the more I realize that the most profound magic happens in the "Between," the space between who we are and who the world expects us to be. By choosing to show you this view, I am inviting you into my "Between." It is a place where we prioritize substance over appearance and growth over perfection.
In my books, characters often find their strength in the most unlikely of places. They don't always start in a palace; they start in the dirt. My life in Honduras is, in a way, my own origin story. The "lot next door" isn't a distraction from my work; it is the foundation of it. It teaches me about endurance, about the cycles of nature, and about the quiet power of staying put and growing tall.
Thank you for being part of this journey with me. Whether I’m writing about supernatural worlds or the view from my window in Honduras, the message remains the same: your mindset is the soil, and your actions are the seeds. Don't wait for a perfect lot to start planting your garden. Live in the moment, embrace the unpolished, and keep growing.
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Continue the Journey
If today’s reflection on finding beauty in the unpolished resonated with you, I invite you to explore more of the "Between." Building a life fueled by intention rather than external standards is a practice, and these stories are part of that foundation:
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