I envy the echeverias in a garden by where I work.

They are stunningly beautiful, with red ruffled tips extended from green bases, growing in concentric circles in a dozen unique patterns. Every circular cluster has a different geometry and a different balance. Some reproduce little rosettes in orderly circles, others produce them randomly, unevenly.

They sit in the same patch of dirt and soak up the same amount of light, but they all have these unique, individual rates and patterns of growth. Just like people, except little echeverias probably don’t compare themselves to one another and then wish their rosettes were different. That’s why I envy echeverias.