My story
My story, just like yours, dear reader, began long, long ago – with the very first human on Earth. He is the founder of my family line – my kin – and of yours as well.
Let me explain. If you are reading these lines now, it means you are alive. Your life would not be possible without your parents, who brought you into this world, and their lives would not be possible without your grandparents. If we keep going back along this chain, we eventually arrive at the very first human being on Earth – the one to whom we are all related.
So it turns out that you and I are family, after all.
Sadly, written records of my family go back only a little under 200 years. Most of what I know comes from my grandfather Bronislav and from the history archives.
Let me explain. If you are reading these lines now, it means you are alive. Your life would not be possible without your parents, who brought you into this world, and their lives would not be possible without your grandparents. If we keep going back along this chain, we eventually arrive at the very first human being on Earth – the one to whom we are all related.
So it turns out that you and I are family, after all.
Sadly, written records of my family go back only a little under 200 years. Most of what I know comes from my grandfather Bronislav and from the history archives.
Grandfather is the first from the left. Next to him stands his mother, Helena.
Bronislav was a charismatic philosopher and a teacher of German and English. He adored the works of Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.
I miss him. I would love to sit with him now and lose myself in long conversations about the meaning of life and the role each person plays in the story of humanity.
By the way, did you know that the word philosophy (from philos + sophia) literally means “love of wisdom” in Ancient Greek?
Bronislav was a charismatic philosopher and a teacher of German and English. He adored the works of Goethe and Friedrich Schiller.
I miss him. I would love to sit with him now and lose myself in long conversations about the meaning of life and the role each person plays in the story of humanity.
By the way, did you know that the word philosophy (from philos + sophia) literally means “love of wisdom” in Ancient Greek?
Shortly before he passed away, Grandfather wrote down what he knew about our ancestors on his father’s side. They lived in the first half of the 19th century, in the times of Tsarist Russia (today’s Latgale in Latvia), when wealthy Polish farmers were granted large plots of land.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (seven generations back) was one of those who chose to leave Poland and build an estate on the shore of beautiful Lake Ilza (Elszen), in the village of Zabludovka (today Kastuļina Parish).
He had only one child – a daughter whom he loved dearly. She, in turn, fell in love with a Japanese man named Mikoda, who was living there in exile. She loved him as deeply as he loved her. When Mikoda asked for the nobleman’s daughter’s hand in marriage, he received the father’s blessing on one condition: that the young family would take his surname – Parfenovičs (Parfenovich).
This name is still alive today. The youngest member of our family line to carry it is my talented son, Adrian.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather (seven generations back) was one of those who chose to leave Poland and build an estate on the shore of beautiful Lake Ilza (Elszen), in the village of Zabludovka (today Kastuļina Parish).
He had only one child – a daughter whom he loved dearly. She, in turn, fell in love with a Japanese man named Mikoda, who was living there in exile. She loved him as deeply as he loved her. When Mikoda asked for the nobleman’s daughter’s hand in marriage, he received the father’s blessing on one condition: that the young family would take his surname – Parfenovičs (Parfenovich).
This name is still alive today. The youngest member of our family line to carry it is my talented son, Adrian.
My Birth
I was born in Riga, in the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, during the time of the Soviet Union, and I spent most of the next 25 years living in the town of Jelgava. I have two sisters, and that makes me very happy. Each of them has her own unique charm and wisdom.
Here I am with my parents, only a few days old.
My mum, Guna, knew from early childhood that she wanted to become a gardener. She is still passionately involved in garden work today and carries out various experiments on restoring soil fertility. I have learned a great deal from her – both in landscape design and in gardening.
My father, Imants, is an electronics engineer by education. After marrying my mother and starting a business together, he realised that growing and selling plants could be a very profitable trade. And in those days it truly was – a single year’s profit could be enough to build a large family house.
Today he runs one of the largest nurseries in Latvia, which he built from scratch himself (Zalenieki Nursery, www.zalenieki.lv). For me, my father is an example of how, step by step, with persistence, you can turn a dream into reality.
My father, Imants, is an electronics engineer by education. After marrying my mother and starting a business together, he realised that growing and selling plants could be a very profitable trade. And in those days it truly was – a single year’s profit could be enough to build a large family house.
Today he runs one of the largest nurseries in Latvia, which he built from scratch himself (Zalenieki Nursery, www.zalenieki.lv). For me, my father is an example of how, step by step, with persistence, you can turn a dream into reality.
Searching for My Calling – My True Path in Life
From a very young age I was involved in different gardening tasks. I didn’t do them because I liked them, but because they had to be done. At that time, I had no idea that almost three decades later gardening and landscape design would become the source of immense joy in my life.
Here I am with my father by the greenhouses full of flowers. I am one year old.
My Thriveman cloak was still completely transparent then. In fact, I had no idea I even had one – although at night I often dreamt I was flying like a bird, in a life without boundaries.
Sometimes it makes me really sad that people so often have to spend many years of their life before they realise who they truly are and which talents are hidden inside them. Many never discover them at all. They drift through a lukewarm life without miracles, without a burning heart – with eyes that show boredom, sadness and a longing for something beautiful and noble, yet hard to name.
I remember at school how I admired – and even envied – those classmates who already knew who they wanted to become and which profession they wanted to throw themselves into with passion. There weren’t many of them, and I was not among them. Right up to about thirty years of age I did not know what my individual, special life path – my mission – really was, even though I had tried myself in different jobs and business ventures.
It was only as I approached thirty, when my business partner and I were managing a large Art Nouveau building in the centre of Riga, that I noticed a pattern in my free time: I kept visiting parks and squares.
I loved to sit quietly and observe. To look at the landscape and each element in it – how they fitted together, or didn’t – and to imagine what I would change. Fountains fascinated me less as a finished picture – water jets rising from the nozzles – and far more as a piece of engineering: how they were built, what mechanisms and technologies were at work so that passers-by could stop, gaze and delight in the images formed by the water.
After we sold the property business, I had enough money to live without working for several years. But peace never came. I soon found myself involved in various landscaping jobs in private gardens. I did whatever was needed – weeding, sowing, planting, trimming hedges, renovating ponds and fountains, and many other tasks that belong to a gardener’s craft.
And then things unfolded just as Paulo Coelho describes in his book The Zahir:
“We always know if we are on the right path, even if we do not fully understand its meaning. That certainty comes from the enthusiasm we feel for what we do. When we are enthusiastic, we are on the right path. If not, we had better change direction.”
I was enthusiastic – deeply, overwhelmingly so. More than ever before.
I had found my true self. At last.
I remember at school how I admired – and even envied – those classmates who already knew who they wanted to become and which profession they wanted to throw themselves into with passion. There weren’t many of them, and I was not among them. Right up to about thirty years of age I did not know what my individual, special life path – my mission – really was, even though I had tried myself in different jobs and business ventures.
It was only as I approached thirty, when my business partner and I were managing a large Art Nouveau building in the centre of Riga, that I noticed a pattern in my free time: I kept visiting parks and squares.
I loved to sit quietly and observe. To look at the landscape and each element in it – how they fitted together, or didn’t – and to imagine what I would change. Fountains fascinated me less as a finished picture – water jets rising from the nozzles – and far more as a piece of engineering: how they were built, what mechanisms and technologies were at work so that passers-by could stop, gaze and delight in the images formed by the water.
After we sold the property business, I had enough money to live without working for several years. But peace never came. I soon found myself involved in various landscaping jobs in private gardens. I did whatever was needed – weeding, sowing, planting, trimming hedges, renovating ponds and fountains, and many other tasks that belong to a gardener’s craft.
And then things unfolded just as Paulo Coelho describes in his book The Zahir:
“We always know if we are on the right path, even if we do not fully understand its meaning. That certainty comes from the enthusiasm we feel for what we do. When we are enthusiastic, we are on the right path. If not, we had better change direction.”
I was enthusiastic – deeply, overwhelmingly so. More than ever before.
I had found my true self. At last.
When Love Enters Your Life
I have been fortunate to feel, and live through to the core, powerful love more than once. Falling in love happened in a moment – or perhaps even quicker than that. You cannot quite explain it, but there it is.
Love is such an immense force; it does not obey the mind. It is like a living being – it decides for itself when and to whom it will come. Still, we humans can create the conditions for it to stay. For a lifetime… or longer.
And we can also chase it away – sometimes without meaning to.
Love needs a living space – a garden. It does not enjoy being locked between four walls; there is not enough living soil for it there. Love needs to be sown and planted in the garden, in the most literal sense of the word. Sounds strange? I’ll explain below, after a piece of poetry.
From time to time I write poetry. It comes to me naturally when I am in love. These are lines from an early morning when love’s energy was very present in me. Without love I would never write anything of the sort. I would not even begin.
Love is such an immense force; it does not obey the mind. It is like a living being – it decides for itself when and to whom it will come. Still, we humans can create the conditions for it to stay. For a lifetime… or longer.
And we can also chase it away – sometimes without meaning to.
Love needs a living space – a garden. It does not enjoy being locked between four walls; there is not enough living soil for it there. Love needs to be sown and planted in the garden, in the most literal sense of the word. Sounds strange? I’ll explain below, after a piece of poetry.
From time to time I write poetry. It comes to me naturally when I am in love. These are lines from an early morning when love’s energy was very present in me. Without love I would never write anything of the sort. I would not even begin.
Good morning, ***!
You read these words with eyes so bright,
where sparks of midnight stars take flight;
those stars that whispered through the dark
beat with your heart’s own steady spark.
This morning feels like something new –
the whole of nature’s drenched in dew;
the sky has scattered, soft and slow,
a billion crystals here below.
When sunrise lifts its golden head,
they’ll wake in silver, gold and red,
in diamond laughter, clear and light,
all dancing in the arms of light.
It doesn’t matter which are more –
the stars that crowd the sky’s wide shore
or crystals shining on the ground;
one truth is greater, deeper, found:
if every star were fused in one,
a single blazing diamond sun,
its fiercest glow could never start
to warm me like your gentle heart.
So may your day from dawn till end
shine with that warmth you softly send –
a day of joy, so clear and true,
heart-lit and shimmering… like you, ***! ❤️✨
You read these words with eyes so bright,
where sparks of midnight stars take flight;
those stars that whispered through the dark
beat with your heart’s own steady spark.
This morning feels like something new –
the whole of nature’s drenched in dew;
the sky has scattered, soft and slow,
a billion crystals here below.
When sunrise lifts its golden head,
they’ll wake in silver, gold and red,
in diamond laughter, clear and light,
all dancing in the arms of light.
It doesn’t matter which are more –
the stars that crowd the sky’s wide shore
or crystals shining on the ground;
one truth is greater, deeper, found:
if every star were fused in one,
a single blazing diamond sun,
its fiercest glow could never start
to warm me like your gentle heart.
So may your day from dawn till end
shine with that warmth you softly send –
a day of joy, so clear and true,
heart-lit and shimmering… like you, ***! ❤️✨
To take this energy of love and this boundless sense of happiness and pour it into creating your outdoor space – your garden – means tying that feeling to a particular place and letting it live on there.
P.S. The person in this picture is not actually me – the image was created by artificial intelligence. But that is not important. What matters is the symbol, the feeling.
Just imagine: a couple in love, with that blazing passion that is usually strongest at the beginning of a relationship, consciously choosing to invest it into shaping their shared environment.
What you plant is what will grow – both in the soil and in your feelings.
Every tree, shrub and flower will remind you of the pull and the fire you felt when you created the garden together. Wouldn’t that be the most valuable investment of your life – an investment in the happiness of yourself, your family and your kin – your future generations?
Trees, shrubs and flowers grow. They flourish and become more beautiful with every year. And together with them, your family’s love blossoms too.
What you plant is what will grow – both in the soil and in your feelings.
Every tree, shrub and flower will remind you of the pull and the fire you felt when you created the garden together. Wouldn’t that be the most valuable investment of your life – an investment in the happiness of yourself, your family and your kin – your future generations?
Trees, shrubs and flowers grow. They flourish and become more beautiful with every year. And together with them, your family’s love blossoms too.
Discovering My True Nature
Even as a small child I sensed that I was different from most of my peers. My imagination was extremely vivid and my sensitivity very fine-tuned. My inner world was far wider than the world most people around me seemed to live in, talk about and act from.
So fitting into society’s expectations, trying to be like everyone else, never really worked for me. I felt there was something more – and far more interesting – than the life we were taught to live by our parents, teachers and the television.
While I write these lines, I have the feeling that I am not alone in this. Perhaps you have felt something similar in your childhood – and maybe not only then?
The environment around us, together with the flow of information we live in every day, has a huge impact on our character, our intentions, our dreams and goals. Yet there is something in my life that no external circumstances were able to touch – my inner world, my ideals and my dreams. The true and colourful me, not the grey version.
A child’s carefree playfulness, the wisdom of a forest gnome, the grace of a fairy, a twenty-year-old’s uncompromising idealism, a jester’s silly humour, Gandalf’s magical powers, the superhuman strength of Superman and Wonder Woman – all of this lives in our imagination and feelings, whatever our age.
Each of us has a choice: to live a life full of surprises and miracles, like a never-ending journey – or a grey, monotonous and lukewarm existence, never allowing our inner beauty to blossom. It is a choice.
For a while I acted in an amateur theatre. That is when I discovered that I was best at playing unusual roles – forest gnomes or witches, for example. When you step into such a role, you allow the character to unfold completely. Fairy tales do not put you in a box; they open you up to an endless flight of imagination.
So fitting into society’s expectations, trying to be like everyone else, never really worked for me. I felt there was something more – and far more interesting – than the life we were taught to live by our parents, teachers and the television.
While I write these lines, I have the feeling that I am not alone in this. Perhaps you have felt something similar in your childhood – and maybe not only then?
The environment around us, together with the flow of information we live in every day, has a huge impact on our character, our intentions, our dreams and goals. Yet there is something in my life that no external circumstances were able to touch – my inner world, my ideals and my dreams. The true and colourful me, not the grey version.
A child’s carefree playfulness, the wisdom of a forest gnome, the grace of a fairy, a twenty-year-old’s uncompromising idealism, a jester’s silly humour, Gandalf’s magical powers, the superhuman strength of Superman and Wonder Woman – all of this lives in our imagination and feelings, whatever our age.
Each of us has a choice: to live a life full of surprises and miracles, like a never-ending journey – or a grey, monotonous and lukewarm existence, never allowing our inner beauty to blossom. It is a choice.
For a while I acted in an amateur theatre. That is when I discovered that I was best at playing unusual roles – forest gnomes or witches, for example. When you step into such a role, you allow the character to unfold completely. Fairy tales do not put you in a box; they open you up to an endless flight of imagination.
And yet none of those characters reflected my true nature and inner world. I still had to find myself.
You Really Can Change the Future of the World
If we look at the world today – which is the direct result of our past choices – it is clear that the Earth’s ecology faces great challenges. Our consumer society has exhausted itself and has proved that it has no future.
The rising numbers of illnesses and addictions, the constant conflicts within families and between nations, the unending wars and many other symptoms are widely accepted as “normal” by a large part of global society. More and more people have moved from the countryside to the cities, drifting further away from nature.
The world needs change. With the usual narrow, small-minded thinking we will not solve these problems. But we can solve them if we allow our inner beauty to blossom, if we trust ourselves and our unique wisdom and strength, understanding that we are part of perfection and that our abilities have no real limits.
The rising numbers of illnesses and addictions, the constant conflicts within families and between nations, the unending wars and many other symptoms are widely accepted as “normal” by a large part of global society. More and more people have moved from the countryside to the cities, drifting further away from nature.
The world needs change. With the usual narrow, small-minded thinking we will not solve these problems. But we can solve them if we allow our inner beauty to blossom, if we trust ourselves and our unique wisdom and strength, understanding that we are part of perfection and that our abilities have no real limits.
I chose to believe. And in doing so I discovered within myself a man who brings thriving to the world.
Thriveman can turn the desert into a green oasis, grow a garden ten times faster, clean the oceans of plastic pollution and transform gloomy housing estates into living paintings admired on every continent.
And most importantly – he shows how much each of us matters in the fate of our planet. By creating a paradise garden for your family and your kin, you change yourself – and with that, you change the world.
And now – it’s time for your story!
Thriveman can turn the desert into a green oasis, grow a garden ten times faster, clean the oceans of plastic pollution and transform gloomy housing estates into living paintings admired on every continent.
And most importantly – he shows how much each of us matters in the fate of our planet. By creating a paradise garden for your family and your kin, you change yourself – and with that, you change the world.
And now – it’s time for your story!
