I saw this as a post between friends on the internet the other day, which comes from the title of a book by Jeffrey S. Young about Steve Jobs. I was very inspired by the philosophy behind it, which is really the only relevance of that book to this post.

“The journey is the reward.”

I think of the tree first, and the journey it endures. Statistically, for the seed of a tree to germinate and grow to maturity in the wild is highly unlikely. I’ll use an example that I’ve quoted in the past, from the book “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben:

“Every five years, a beech tree produces at least thirty thousand beechnuts…It is sexually mature at about 80 to 150 years of age, depending on how much light it gets and where it’s growing. Assuming it grows to be 400 years old, it can fruit at least sixty times and produce a total of about 1.8 million beechnuts. From these, exactly one will develop into a full-grown tree-and in forest terms, that is a high rate of success” (page 29)

In the tree’s journey to maturity, taken in the context above, life really is a magical reward. Like the golden ticket in Willy Wonka. There is, on the surface, a feeling of luck and of chance. Wohlleben uses the lottery as a metaphor.

Deeper behind the excerpt though, I see an unrelenting drive to succeed. The chances are 1 in 1.8 million (in this particular case). Imagine knowing those odds from the start? What gloom. Fortunately for us, trees aren’t transfixed on where they’re going. There’s no panic, no frustration, just an iron will to face the elements and draw out life from the one little lucky place it was given. Selfless.

So there is luck, but there is also a fearlessly functioning system in a highly challenging environment. From the tree’s perspective, this is the reward. Because every single day the tree smiles a gritty grin knowing that it is beating the odds as everyday beats onward. Nose to the damn grindstone. Into the headwind. It is something to be inspired by, the journey of an ancient tree.

I think too, about all the seeds that don’t make it. Millions of them. Again, that’s a discouraging thing to consider, if trees had our standards of success. My interpretation here is that the reward isn’t in the product or by-product, but the process. The process as art and architecture. Remember how fascinated Shigo was with processes? Because there is so much beauty found there. And then I think of the journey in terms of process, and this idea becomes beautiful as well.

If we can learn something from the tree about the journey we’re on, as arborists, as climbers, as business owners and as people, it’s that things don’t really come easy.

And that should be totally irrelevant, because most of us, in one way or another, have already won the lottery.