The final result will be well worth the wait. So plant your seed, give it attention and give it time. Whether you’re pursuing a goal, creating something new or roasting a marshmallow, the longer you work without needing gratification, the bigger and better the payoff. Slow results don’t mean things aren’t working. Why bother planting a carrot in the ground when today you can create an entire e-farm on you iPhone? There’s an App for that. Observing the growth of a carrot was the 1945 equivalent of watching SpongeBob.

Life was slower in the boy’s world, so attention spans were longer. He didn’t have Wi-Fi, a microwave oven or On Demand television. The little boy in The Carrot Seed grew up in a different environment than my kids. That puts my fast brain at a disadvantage. Many endeavors still require time and slow cultivation. Unfortunately, there’s a lot technology has not sped up yet. Given the choice, I’ll shop at Best Buy long before going to the general store. Technology has made this a really cool time to be alive. My kids have never waited for information or entertainment. First published in 1945 and never out of print, this timeless combination of Ruth Krausss simple text and Crockett Johnsons eloquent illustrations creates a triumphant and deeply satisfying story. We expect things sooner, so being patient is getting harder. We don’t wait for tomorrow’s paper to get today’s news. We don’t sit by the mailbox anticipating correspondence from distant family and friends.

We no longer wait for printed photos to come back from the film developer. How many accomplishments have we missed simply because we quit too early? How many of us are willing to wait 75 days for anything? We give up on diets, relationships, businesses, investments and all kinds of goals, simply because the desired results aren’t immediate enough. Even without anyone discouraging him, it would take real dedication to keep watering and pulling weeds with nothing to show for it for 60 to 75 days. In the end (spoiler alert!), the carrot comes up and the boy needs a wheelbarrow to carry it away.Ĭleary the story celebrates the values of faith and perseverance. This 99-word story brilliantly tells the tale of a little boy who plants a carrot seed and continues to care for it, even though everyone in his family tells him it won’t come up. Yesterday I read my daughter the oldest book on her bookshelf, Ruth Krauss’ The Carrot Seed.

The carrot seed book