If you enjoy gardening -- one of the best ways I know to concurrently exercise and meditate -- your weekend may have included a pruning, mowing, raking, digging and planting workout.

Mine also included the sorting, separating and labeling ritual necessary to prepare more than 100 dahlias for insertion in a community garden. As I enjoyed the quiet solitude required to label each bulb with its name, variety, height, and bloom size, an amusing insight crossed my mind: wouldn't life be easy if everyone we met came labeled with the personality characteristics that become apparent only after we've known them for some time? Think of all the heartache we could avoid if potential friends and relationship partners were labeled with their "varieties" and "bloom sizes" -- "attentive but emotionally unavailable," or "exciting but suffers from attention deficit," or "loving but commitment phobic," or "talented but egocentric," or "controlling disguised as caring," or "alcoholic" -- or any of the inevitable quirks and character flaws we encounter after we've invested time in a relationship.

Better yet, we could carry a mandatory paper similar to the enclosures that come with prescription drugs to inform us of precautions we should take, background data, mode of action, side effects and results we can expect from using the drug. That information about a person might not prevent us from leaping into the fray of discovering those realities for ourselves and how well we accept and deal with them, but it could alert us to potentially important possibilities.

When we engage in a new friendship most of us are eager to put our best self forward. Soon, like the bright bloom of a new flower that ultimately fades, we reveal our true self, affirming the psychological wisdom that tells us the greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Of course, each of us has the potential to evolve and be transformed, so my system is far from foolproof. In actuality, change is inevitable. So successful relationships require acknowledging and embracing change and a willingness to risk personal growth in the self and in others. We must tend to and cultivate the garden of relationship to nourish its survival.

Perhaps that is why I enjoy growing dahlias. They are a metaphor for so much about life, including our eagerness to nourish, fertilize and bring out the best in others. Best of all, after that planting and tending, they produce colorful, prolific blooms from mid-summer until a hard frost, dependably yielding unlimited vases of a variety of cut flowers that bring joy to everyone who welcomes them into their home.

Those who scoff might take a second look. Gardening may be the best exercise of all.