Stuck in the Weeds: Confronting our Bias Towards Those Seeking Opportunity By Jonah Langelotz

 If you were given a choice of a new colleague, who would you prefer to work with? 

Option 1: A quick learner, hardworking, energetic, and efficient with resources and time. However, they 

look and act a little different and at times their personality is prickly. 

Option 2: A high maintenance colleague who takes a lot more management, uses more resources to get the 

job done, but is still relatively competent. They do fit nicely into the landscape though, most people enjoy 

their aesthetic, and many appreciate their company. 

Who is your choice? Depending on the work, the choice might not be unanimous, but I think most would 

agree that the first option would be a solid choice. 

You may have gathered by this point that I’m not talking about people, but plants. Option 1 is what we 

call a weed and Option 2 is lawn. 

Well, that changes everything then, right!? Don’t worry, I’m not here to argue that weeds are great, and 

lawns are bad, because I certainly don’t believe that.  I do however, want to ask the question: Why do we 

so often we choose one over the other, and should that be worth rethinking?

First off, let’s recognize some bias. The term weed is inherently negative, a prejudice on a plant that’s just 

doing its best to survive. “Weeds” are opportunistic species, often of non-native origins, who are really 

good at what they do. They, like other plants, are trying to cover black soil and provide food and shelter 

for it, while hoping to produce seed or grow roots so that they can survive into the future. 

I’ve dealt with all sorts of opportunistic species in my time, perhaps more than most. Annuals like pigweed 

or lambsquarters are the easiest (to kill) in my experience, way easier than perennials like nettle, dandelion,

 quackgrass, motherwort, burdock – you name it! (I’m also not here to tell you to make nettle tea, eat your 

dandelion leaves, etc. - although I totally dare you!) Like most people, in the space where I interact with 

these plants I want to be in control, and I have an expectation of what I want that to look like. And generally,

  that means killing them

.

We all bring a certain bias into what we do. Growing a garden, I plant lettuce to eat in a salad, not hope to 

have pigweed grow so that I can substitute that (even though it’s much higher in protein and iron…but that’s 

another story). Growing a lawn, we weed, mow, and even water grass to have a place to comfortably play 

and walk. These places serve a function, give us control, and provide comfort and satisfaction of a vision 

and goal made real.  

But I think it’s good to be reminded that we can learn from other opportunistic species, and that not every 

space we inhabit is one we can or need to control. As difficult as it can be to admit, weeds fill a role in a 

community. They cover soil, they capture sunlight, and they are a food source for soil life. A healthy 

community isn’t a monoculture. We need a diversity of plants growing, like people in a community - 

filling different roles, being productive, keeping us learning, humble and to challenge the way we see the 

world.

So, I encourage you to keep up the hard work of tending whatever vision brings you joy. I hope that this 

vision doesn’t do harm to others, and that it supports the growth of many things. Just remember that this 

vision is one of many and that it is a picture of your worldview and bias; and that even though the plants 

and people around you are undoubtedly different, the motivations behind their vision aren’t all that different 

than your own. 

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