The Mustard seed within us.
The Mustard Seed Within Us
A mustard seed is tiny. Yet within that tiny seed lies the possibility of something far greater.
Perhaps human potential is much the same.
We often look at where we are and fail to see what we may become. We measure the seed by its size, forgetting the tree that may one day emerge from it.
Viktor Frankl, Carl Jung, and Friedrich Nietzsche approached human existence from very different perspectives, yet each spoke, in his own way, about the possibility of becoming more fully who we are.
For Viktor Frankl, life continually asks something of us. We may not be able to choose every circumstance, but we retain the freedom to choose our response. Meaning is discovered through the way we live, the choices we make, the responsibilities we accept, and the love we give.
The first step, therefore, is a choice: to respond to life.
For Carl Jung, human development is a gradual unfolding toward greater consciousness and wholeness. The journey requires us to turn inward, encounter what lies within us, and integrate even those parts of ourselves we would rather avoid.
The seed grows quietly before its growth becomes visible.
For Friedrich Nietzsche, becoming requires courage, self-overcoming, and movement beyond the limitations of who we currently are. Potential cannot remain merely potential. It must be lived.
And the biblical image of the mustard seed reminds us of something equally profound: never underestimate a small beginning. What appears insignificant today may become something that reaches far beyond what we can presently imagine.
The First Step
There is a familiar wisdom that a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step.
The first step may seem small compared with the distance ahead. Yet without it, there is no journey.
Perhaps the first step is not about knowing exactly where we will end up.
Perhaps it is simply the courage to begin.
A decision.
A conversation.
An act of love.
A willingness to change.
A moment of responsibility.
A choice to live differently.
These may appear to be small things. But every significant transformation begins somewhere.
What Is Your Mustard Seed?
Within each of us there may be something that has not yet fully emerged a possibility, a calling, a capacity, a relationship, an idea, or a way of living that is waiting to be realized.
We cannot always see the tree within the seed.
But we can choose to plant it.
We can nurture it.
We can take the next step.
And perhaps this is where the wisdom of these giants meets the wisdom of the mustard seed:
Potential asks to be realized.
Meaning asks to be lived.
Love asks to be expressed.
Growth asks us to begin.
We do not have to see the entire path before taking the first step.
We only have to recognize that the first step matters.
Because every great journey begins with something small.
And sometimes, within the smallest beginning, lies the possibility of an extraordinary life.
Margalit Chordekar
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