As kids, many of us have sat in the yard and just searched for the elusive four-leaf clover. Kids can search for hours on end and often never find anything close. They only continue to find those three leaf clovers that aren’t the “lucky” kind.
As a 4-H agent, I have never really lost that want to search for the elusive 4 leaf clover. Over the years, depending on what was going on, I’d take the time to just sit in the yard, pulling clovers, and searching for that one that I hoped was out there that was four-leafed. I’ve searched for hours on end and never found one. This morning, however, was different.
While waiting for my dogs, that thought of the elusive four-leaf clover, crossed my mind. I looked and looked but all I saw were the 3 leaves. Then I saw it, it was sitting there, shining at me…a four-leaf clover! And of course, I had to grab it. How often do we spend our time looking and looking for something and never find it?
Nature versus nurture plays in here
White Clover, also known as Dutch clover, is a cool season perennial that can be found in fields and lawns. In North Florida lawns, we typically see it as a pest, a weed. How is this very “lucky” four-leaf clover considered a weed? We are influenced by nature and nuture and in these influences, we decide how we react to them and apply them to our lives. It other words, we decide whether we go negative or positive with these influences. We decide if we become just a weed or a lucky find in that sea of clovers.
Luck, of course, is what you make it. Four-leaf clovers are a mutation of an actual three leaf plant. Are they really that lucky? Well, considering you hardly ever find them, yes, you could say its lucky to find one. But is that plant really lucky if its getting mutated to something completely different from what it was supposed to be?
Well, how do you apply this to your life? Are you considered a weed? A bother? Is it just because you are different? Is it really such a crime to be different? Maybe you should be considered the “lucky” one because you are, in fact, different from everyone else.
Are you willing to be the lucky one?
Being different is something that we should accept and cultivate from. We should grow and build confidence to know that our being different is a good thing. This one clover had the strength to grow strong and tall and show itself amongst the others as completely different. Are you ready to accept being completely different, the completely lucky one? Are you ready to be the one four-leaf clover amongst the sea of regular old three-leaf clovers?
To read more on White Clover, visit our EDIS Publication on White Clover.