Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. 
“I’ll come next Tuesday,” I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call.
The next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I went. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, “Forget the daffodils, the road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there’s nothing in the world that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!” My daughter smiled calmly and said, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.” “Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading home.” “Will you just go with me over to the garage to pick up my car,” Carolyn said. “I’ll drive. I’m used to this.” After several minutes of driving, I had to ask, “Where are we going? This isn’t the way to the garage!” We’re going to my garage the long way,” Carolyn smiled, “By way of the daffodils.” “Please turn around,” I said. “It’s all right, Mother, I promise. You’ll never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”
After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that read, “Daffodil Garden.” I got out of the car, took a child’s hand, and followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns – great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon, pink, saffron, and bright yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with it’s own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.
“But who has done this?” I asked Carolyn. “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.” Carolyn pointed to a well-kept, A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the porch we saw a poster. “Answers to the Questions I Know You are Asking,” was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “One at a time by one woman with two hands, two feet, and very little brain.” The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”
There it was. The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience! I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before had begun – one bulb at a time – to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain-top. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of indescribable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her Daffodil Garden taught is one of the greatest principles of Celebration. Learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time – often just one baby-step at a time – and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
“It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five years ago and had worked away at it one bulb at a time through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!” My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said. “It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use today?”
So stop waiting —-
Until your car or home is paid off – Until you get a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house – Until you go back to school
Until you lose 10 pounds – Until you gain 10 pounds
Until you get married – Until you get a divorce
Until you have kids – Until you retire
Until summer or fall or winter or spring
There is no better time than right now to be happy. Happiness, like success, is a journey, not a destination. So work like you don’t need money, love like you’ve never been hurt, and dance like no one’s watching.