Every time I sit down to write on our blog, I am hit with this wall of writer’s block. Maybe I shouldn’t say writer’s block, but this need to write something profound and uplifting about agriculture…and I’ve got nothing.
As I sit in my shop well into the evening on a Friday night listening to my mill run, I start to think about the bulk of it all. How I would much rather be a high school football game tonight and would prefer to not go to my farmers market tomorrow because of the holiday weekend and I have many other things that could be done. I begin to think about how there are so many other jobs out there that pay well and even at this point, pay regularly. So why don’t I go out and get one of those regular paying jobs? Why work these long hours just to end up tired and just getting by at the end of the week?
I find that I am constantly battling with staying the course or changing directions and settling for one of those stable secure jobs. Do I abandon all of my efforts to this point in the name of a paycheck? Will I be able to find a paycheck that allows me the contentment that I currently receive or will I just be doing time each day? Do I want to become one of those people who forgets that Labor Day is a day to be spent working (because why else would it fall during harvest?)?
I guess the obvious answer to all of this is that I am glutton for punishment, but the real answer is that I and my husband love providing people with a quality product. We love to hear the amazement in our customers’ voices when they found out that “we do this ourselves,” that this is our business. A small reward for us is when people ask how we find time to do it all and our response is “we just do.” We find time to make this work. We know that deep down we are doing something good and something that people are truly interested in.
As we choose to stay the course, we find that for every positive voice encouraging you, there will be twice as many nay-sayers. It sometimes feels like you can’t tell if people are happy to see you trying to make something or if they are just waiting for you to fail. This can begin to weigh down on you if you are grappling with the above mentioned questions, but you can’t let it. At least I know that I can’t let it guide my decisions. And that is the most important answer of all.
And sometimes after a good solid session of verbal bloodletting, I look back at what I have written and though it may not be profound, I know that there is someone else out there pondering these same questions. Not that I have all of the answers, but I hear that misery loves company and that maybe it can provide that person with some comfort knowing that they aren’t the only ones asking. And that maybe with that comfort, they can begin to find their own answers.
And then possibly share them with the rest of us!