i'm 21. here's a message to 11yr old me...

When I was a little boy my mom bought a bamboo tree.

I hated the damn tree because it never grew, it looked like an ingrown hair, and I was the mf who was in charge of watering it every day.

Why did I have to water her plant? She bought it.

My mom still doesn't know this, but every time she got a new plant I didn't like… I'd run it over with a lawn mower.

I was a devious kid.

But here's the thing about bamboo trees… they're too short to run over.

And if I dug it up, that'd be too suspicious.

So I was stuck taking care of the stupid thing.

Most plants start growing after a week or so, but this plant was different…

Week 1: Nothing

Week 2: Nothing

Week 3: Nothing

I thought the plant was dead, so I asked my mom if we could get rid of it

She looked at me, widened her crazy looking eyes, and screamed "NO"

Those eyes always struck fear in me… but that didn't stop me from pushing more

"But why?"

After the third "because I said so" line she added another win to her belt…

Mom - 1,272

Me - 0

I still don't know why I tried to arguing with her.

Looking back I realized that my mom placed random sentimental value on things I didn't care for, but it mattered to her, so I had to deal with it.

I went back to taking care of the tree…

I'd wake up, walk outside, water the tree, go about my day, repeat.

Believe it or not… I did that for MONTHS, but the tree STILL wasn't growing.

But I was afraid of seeing those crazy eyes again, so I kept doing it.

It took SIX months for the bamboo to see a tiny bit of growth.

And it took a YEAR to see it really shoot up.

But here's what crazy… once it started growing, it grew FAST.

We had to get rid of it because it was multiplying, taking over our other plants in our garden, like an infectious virus.

Just like that… a year of "hard work" down the drain.

10 years later I still think about that stupid bamboo tree.

99.999999% of the time things don't work out like I expect them to.

For example, a few days ago I posted a 101 minute video I thought was my best video to date, but it flopped.

But you know what's interesting?

When I zoom out everything looks A LOT different.

Yesterday, I closed my eyes and imagined I was 11 year old Brady.

Showed him my house, my car, all the cool places I've traveled, people I've met, the person I've become, and I almost cried.

Then I thought of that damn bamboo tree.

- Brady Badour