Well, hello there. My name is Morgan Harper-Nichols. I'm an artist and a writer, and this is a space where I share words that I hope can make a little room for you to slow down and take a few deep breaths as you prepare for whatever lies ahead. Thanks for being here today. And now on to today's episode. Today is part four of this week's series

on learning to thrive in the desert. Parts one, two, and three came out earlier this week and are

available wherever you listen to podcasts. Today I want to focus on what I observed about

cacti while visiting the desert botanical garden and also what I've observed about cacti in

general. When it comes to these prickly plants, there's often so much more than what we see on

the surface. Because I live in Arizona, I see a lot of cacti on a regular basis.

One thing that always stands out to me is that they rarely look like the pictures of cacti I see online.

If I were to Google the word cactus, the search would most likely return images of bright green plants stretching up in the desert sunset.

Additionally, there may be images that showcase cacti with these pretty purple tints or these yellow flowers growing out of their crowns. And while these cacti are beautiful, they are not necessarily an accurate reputation of what I see on a regular basis or what many

other cacti species look like.

Most of the cacti I've encountered are not these bright colorful plants.

And it's only a few of them that are tall enough to create that classic silhouette against

the sunset sky. Many cacti are small, extra prickly,

and go unnoticed in a landscape with so many other things growing around them. And yet,

even in their simplest form, they are still valuable to their surroundings. Thinking about this difference between the cacti I see online versus the cacti that I see in person

reminds me so much of how we often see ourselves in comparison to others.

Online, everything seems more pristine and romantic.

We see other people posting about their daily lives

and saturated colors and with filters that accentuate their features and hide the ones that

they don't want us to see. So much of what we encounter on the internet ends up becoming larger

than life. It's alluring, idealized, and unfortunately,

these unrealistic expectations are often what we end up comparing ourselves to. What I love about

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