Make An Oath to Your Houseplants

How Making Small Promises Heals Big Things

Tiny Thriving Lives Can Change Yours

I have this prompt on my Hinge profile where I answer the question:

You should not date me if ________;

to which I filled in: “Can’t keep a houseplant alive.”

This is a joke, but there’s always truth in jest. If you can’t keep a succulent alive your life is so drastically different than mine, I feel we’d be destined for failure.

Not because you’re a bad person, because you’re a busy person. You have areas of your life where neglect is not only permissible, it’s necessary. I have lived that life before, and never want to have a schedule so demanding I can’t manage the will to water a geranium ever again.

Houseplants aren’t decorations to me. They’re the sacrificial canaries of available presence and observation. Do you see that plant as an object to aesthetically serve you with as little effort as possible? Or do you see it for what it is; a helpless living thing counting on you?

Which is why I have that joke on a dating app. If your life is so hectic you don’t have the resources to tend to a stationary roommate, how on earth could you tend to me? My needs are so much more than a houseplant. I need attention every day, and a lot more than a glass of water thrown down my pants before you rush out the door again.

I’m not here to scold you. I killed enough houseplants in my past that if fauna ever gets the equivalent to The Hague I’m toast.

No darling, I’m not here to guilt you.

I’m here to tell you about how taking care of the little lives around me slowly changed how I saw myself, loved myself, and grew in esteem and confidence. I wasn’t expecting it. And it’s one of the great simple discoveries of this farm.

Oh, I’ve Killed House Plants…

Often and for years. I didn’t even see them when I walked into the room. My life was so distracted with work, dating, family drama, depression, and anxiety that even if I did manage to glance in a plant’s direction it wasn’t going to register it needed me. It was more likely to remind me I was failing at something else.

This is the year I am focused on flowers. My indoor plants trained me for this!

Folks, I was gone from 7:30AM until 6PM five days a week, and that left 4 waking hours of free time to juggle all the housework, socializing, exercising, and recreation a single person is supposed to accomplish alone to pass as a functional member of society before bedtime.

Between my cubicle and being depressed most of my life without help or medication, just getting through the day without adding or subtracting anyone from the population was good enough for me. It’s good enough for most of us.

And that’s the problem. An overwhelmed life is normal. Killing houseplants is unavoidable, like running over a squirrel instead of swerving into oncoming traffic; collateral damage to the way things are. And another dead plant is proof positive you’ll never break the cycle.

Here’s my advice: Keep one plant alive for a few months and your life starts to feel and look entirely different.

If you want to feel better about yourself and the world at large: make an oath to your houseplants. Promise them you’re going to check in.

Make it so simple you can’t fail, like touching the soil in the pot every 2 days to feel if it’s dry enough for water. Write it down on a piece of paper and sign it if you have to. Carry it in your pocket so when you empty them before bed you get that tangible reminder.

If you are likely to forget that, than motivate yourself in other ways. Paste a plant reminder on a post-it on the ice cream pint in the freezer. Splurge on a watering can that looks so adorable it’s always out to remind you.

It may sound silly but here’s the thing. Once you start seeing the houseplants in your home thrive—and thriving because of the additional effort and love you gave them—it changes how you see yourself.

Small Promises, Big Changes

Within a few weeks of tending that plant, you went from failure to success in a way you can see, touch, and appreciate. You changed how you treated another to the point of saving its life. You made time to repair neglect. It took thirty seconds a day, but the fact that Gerber daisy in the window isn’t dead means everything.

And you should celebrate it.

If you feel that’s an undeserved victory, then you’re missing the point. You broke a bad habit because of decision. You became something another living thing can depend on. You saved a life.

Those are not small accomplishments. And treating a real bloom where you pay rent as a low bar shows a lack of grace you don’t deserve. Things are hard right now. We are all afraid. But to choose to keep a small beautiful thing going could be enough to keep going yourself.

And every single time you see that living plant you’re reminded that you did that. You made the time. You changed what you thought was acceptable neglect into tolerable accountability. And once you become the kind of person that a ficus can count on; you’d be amazed how easily that levels up.

It’s not instant. You might keep a plant alive only a few weeks before life takes over again and one day you realize it’s another dead stick in a pot—but to see that as failure is wrong—especially if you just beat your longest green-streak since your promotion to management. Get another plant and start again.

Keep making oaths to plants. Soon you’ll realize you do have the time to attend your work friend’s birthday drinks. You can remember to send your friend flowers when their dog dies. You start to see yourself as someone who notices and takes action, and relate that to other areas of your life.

And as your commitment grows plants get healthier, and discipline becomes stronger one day you’re not the kind of person that kills plants. You’re the kind of person that has ten.

So don’t be the person that jokes about how they can’t keep a plant alive. It’s not some quirky character trait. It’s a surrender to rot. Be the person that fixed one small flaw with yourself that changed another life for the better.

Because as simple and small as it sounds, the only way we change our lives is through consistent steady efforts. And you can learn a lot from the quiet teacher rooted in the corner, and smile as you gently shift her container a little more into the light.