The garden which Mandela spent several years in made an announcement in 1977 that there would contain neither arranged work nor manual labor any more, which means the prisoners wouldget more personal time to do something they want. And Mandela was profiting from this, he had more time for gardening, tennis and some personal stuff.In Mandela’s prosperity, the most essential thing you have to do for surviving was to create or promote a kind of thing which can give you the sense of satisfaction. He thought everyone could always find something that he was proud of, even in the jail. Just like you could play basketball to satisfy you at home, you can manage a garden to satisfy you in jail.Ma ndela’s choice was to run a garden in prison, and he asked permission for that at the very beginning since he came here. But the authorities refused time and time again without giving any reason, until one day, theygaveinandpermitted it. Then Mandela got a small slice of place to manage his garden.After Mandela examined the soil of that area, he became a miner. It’s a firm dry land near a garbage dump and he spent almost his entirely spare time to improve the properties of the soil, and turned it from “rocky wasteland” to “plant survivable land”.The first round of Mandela’s planting schedule was some hardy plants. The seeds were p rovided from authorities and some of the best fruits were given back to the warders. And the harvests from the garden were soon improved after some rounds.And then, life in prison recalled the memory of the university, and he found that he didn’tdoany gardening since he went to Johannesburg was a pity in his life.He wanted to study a variety of gardening techniques, then he started to buy books and learnt them through trial and error.Mandela found the process from planting to harvest will offer you a sense of freedom. And then he thought that there is a connection between gardening and leading. Look after the plan and let it grow up; take responsibility for the plan and secure it; and finally, artificial selection to make sure th，e plan will succeed. Those are what make a man a good leader.Then Mandela wrote two letters to his wife about a detailed story about a tomato plant’s whole life, from seedling to death, suggest that he was afraid that their relationship wouldbreakdown, and simultaneously he couldn’t cultivate any of the relationships in his life. Mandela thought that sometimes, there is nothing one can do to save something that must die.。
