Nature Doesn’t Have an Algorithm | Wild Lessons for Real Wellness

Patience. Sometimes I feel like God was running low on patience when he handed me my portion. I am the person who wants to buy the full grown peach tree so I can get peaches on it the very first year. I’m the person who wants to do one workout and immediately see a six pack. I’m the person who wants to go to the doctor about my back and never feel an ounce of pain again. 

It doesn’t help that our current culture is practically engineered to eliminate the gap between wanting something and having it. It has completely rewired our expectations, making any process that requires patience feel like climbing Mount Everest. We no longer wait a week for the next episode of a show or months for a movie release. Streaming platforms drop entire seasons at midnight, encouraging immediate, hyper-stimulated binge consumption. TikTok and Reels deliver a hit of dopamine every 7 to 15 seconds. If a video doesn't hook someone in the first two seconds, they swipe. We are literally training our brains to tolerate zero downtime. Services like Amazon Prime and Instacart mean you can think of an item, buy it with a thumbprint, and have it on your doorstep a few hours later. The natural anticipation of acquiring something is completely gone. 

Perhaps the worst of these is the commercial “wellness” industry, which has expanded far beyond selling just instant physical transformations. It has entirely co-opted our mental and spiritual spaces, too. Sure, companies still thrive on selling 24-hour bloat cures or promising to reshape your physical layout in two weeks using extreme depletion. Digital filters still give us an instantaneous, flawless version of ourselves with one click, bypassing the messy reality of aging and vitality.

But now, they’re selling fast-food enlightenment. We are flooded with apps promising instant mental peace in a three-minute meditation, weekend workshops guaranteeing the curation of a perfectly regulated nervous system, and toxic spiritual positive-vibes-only culture that tells you to simply manifest your way out of human grief. 

It teaches us to treat our minds and souls like an Amazon Prime delivery—demanding immediate relief and immediate spiritual ascension, while completely bypassing the deep, slow, and often uncomfortable labor of true integration.

But here’s the thing… nature doesn’t have an algorithm. You can’t swipe right on an evening primrose to make it bloom faster, and you can’t "buy now, pay later" your way out of a summer drought. I’ve heard it all my life—“good things take time” or “the best things in life are worth waiting for”—but it can feel nearly impossible to remember that when you’re in the thick of it.

Yet, because our culture is actively rewiring our brains to expect instant delivery, we try to force that same unnatural speed onto our own living, breathing bodies and souls. We treat our nervous systems like an Amazon order—demanding immediate peace from a three-minute app after years of sustained trauma. We treat our bodies like a consumer-packaged project, expecting a lifetime of poor vitality to reverse itself after three days of a performative workout routine. And when the results don’t show up overnight, we panic. We assume we are broken, or that we are doing something wrong.

But trying to force instant transformation onto your health is the exact equivalent of dumping synthetic chemicals onto a dry garden bed to force an overnight harvest. It doesn't cultivate life; it just ruins the soil.

True wellness isn't a quick fix; it’s an ecosystem. And just like the earth, it requires you to sustain yourself through the dry spells without burning down the foundation.

This week, walking my property through the dust of this drought, the payoff of that slow patience finally hit me. I watched my evening primrose bloom for the very first time. I waited over a year through frost, weeds, and scorching days just to see it. Right next to it, near the wild blackberries, a cluster of wild lilies popped up out of nowhere—lilies I didn’t even know were resting in the soil, waiting for their time to shine.

If I had dug up the dirt in a frantic panic six months ago because I couldn't see "results" on my timeline, I would have killed the magic before it had a chance to root.

We have to get better at offering ourselves that same grace. You are not failing just because healing takes a full cycle. We have to consciously step out of the hyper-stimulated consumer loop and return to the original intent behind why we started caring for our bodies, our minds, and our spaces in the first place.

True health cannot be packaged, rushed, or forced. It requires you to slow down to a natural, wild speed. And the long game is always the only one worth playing.