Sunflowers in the Shade

I am not a very good gardener.  There is just so much to know.  And I am not particularly interested in studying the ins and outs of the pH level of dirt.  In this way I might be more like my mom who bought a sign which demanded, "Grow Damnit," than my dad who curated champagne-colored roses and tended his heritage tomatoes with love.  However, there are some plants around my home that thrive.  Take these begonias which guard my front door. I planted, fertilized, and now water and just watch as they continue to grow way bigger than their pots.  They get the right amount of sun and the right amount of shade.  I have even bigger begonias out on my back deck, my Bolivian Begonias, which are droopy with blooms. Both these sets of plants are perfectly placed and easy care. Were I to plant sunflowers in either spot beneath the abundance of shade as the forest surrounds my yard, they'd wither and die.  Sunflowers need the sun.  And only the sun.  Much of my life I've tried to do things that weren't going to happen.  Battled with that which will never be.  Directed my energy like a laser on that that never was.  It's like thinking my five-foot tall self could be a basketball player for the NBA and then spending years dribbling the ball around with seven-foot tall ballers.  Or imagining I could pull a loved one out of an old car, as they punch the gas pedal and intentionally careen towards the precipice of the Grand Canyon.  I am no longer a passenger in that car.  I am grief-stricken but no longer sitting in the front seat.  I am good at yoga, but not basketball.  Not fighting what my mind tells me to do or what I wish would happen and moving more with what unfolds with ease has brought me back my life.  Like I am new and reborn and was who I was always meant to be.  This doesn't mean less discipline. Ironically, quite the opposite. As well as more attention and even more of the right kind of knowledge.  But, fundamentally, it's a change in my state of mind from pushing to opening.  And no more fight.  I smile at my begonias in my yoga outfit and wave at the car whizzing towards doom.  My life is infinitely more joyful and full of peace despite the awareness that boulders will continue to roll in my path and sometimes up my nose.  But I now appreciate sunflowers growing elsewhere where they flourish in the sun.