A pruned branch reveals that care sometimes changes the shape of what remains.

Looking after something is not the same as leaving it as it is. A tree that is tended ends up a different shape from the one it would have grown into alone, and the cut branch is not a failure of care but part of it. This is uncomfortable because it means care involves loss, and loss of a kind you chose.

Where something in your life needs attention, ask what would have to be given up for it to do well. Then make that removal deliberately rather than letting it happen by neglect, which takes the same things and teaches you nothing.