This may seem patently obvious, but grass seed needs water to grow. I know, I know, I'm not exactly challenging your intellectual thinking skills. I often wonder if the general populace really gets this stuff, and I'm only privy to the small sampling of people to whom logic cannot stick. I engage in the following question and answer series more times in a year than you can imagine. Q: I have lots of bare patches in my lawn, what can I do to fill them in? A: Seed them, or have a company seed them for you. Make sure to water daily until they fill in. Q: Okay, but I can't really water. The property is too spread out and I'm on a well that we don't want to stress. A: Okay. Q: So, what can I do? A: Pray for rain. Q: What if it doesn't rain? A: Try to water. Q: But I can't. A: Okay Q: So what do I do? You'll notice that the preceding exchange follows a typical and predictable pattern. Watering is inconvenient for them, so they're looking for a way out that doesn't exist. If grass needs water, it needs water. Nothing will substitute, no matter how inconvenient it is. This is a relatively simple lesson that can easily be extrapolated to many areas of life. For example, imagine the following exchange with a personal trainer. Q: I want to lose weight and get into better shape. A: Eat healthier foods and exercise. Q: I don't have time for exercise and my wife is a gourmet cook who would be really offended if I didn't eat whatever she makes. A: Okay. Q: So how can I lose weight? A: Find time for exercise and offend your wife. Q: But those things aren't really possible for me. A: Okay Q: So what can I do to lose weight? Science doesn't have to be complicated. In many ways, it's completely commonsense, but it may not be exactly what we want to read about or do. Put desires aside and realize that the answers to our quests are often pretty simple. They just may require that we roll up our sleeves and get dirty, or sweaty.