Failure

I like to think that I'm a pretty patient person.  I really don't get angry or disappointed with other people very easily.  However, the saying, "you are your own worst critic" is especially true for me.  I am often disappointed in myself when my efforts fall flat.

Today, I fell flat.  I had to give a presentation in class on my farm.  I had written a huge report that took most of the semester to complete.  From that report, which I handed in this morning, I had to give a 10-minute presentation to the class.  I thought it would be easy.  Normally I hate public speaking of any sort.  It terrifies me.  But, yesterday I had to present a 50-minute lesson on solar and wind power in a different class (I was in a group of four, so it more like 12.5 minutes each).  It went really well!  So today, I went into class feeling reasonably confident.  As I listened to the five other students who presented before me, my confidence began to wane.  My PowerPoint wasn't nearly as nice as theirs.  And they had so much more technical information than I did.  Our farm doesn't have soil tests or any sort of official reports to give us information.  We just go by experience.  But the other presenters were talking about their own farms, which are bigger and way more impressive than my family's farm.  By the time I went up to do my presentation I was so scared of being that little farmer that doesn't really matter that I did a horrible job with the presentation.  I completely skipped over a good 2/3 of my soils information (which might have been my saving grace) and didn't even discuss the future farming plans.  It was bad.

I have no idea what kind of a mark I got on that presentation.  I won't know until the end of the semester.  Even if I get a decent mark, I'll still be disappointed in myself.  I had so many expectations  and now I'm just disappointed in myself.  You know, a lot of my classmates assume that I'm happy if I get a good mark in class and upset if I get a poor mark.  It's not like that.  I gave up on judging myself by marks a couple of years ago.  I go to school to learn as much as I possibly can so I can be the best farmer I can be.  I go to meet people who know more than I do so I can learn from them.  And, I do the best I can on assignments, not for the marks, or for the piece of paper I will one day graduate with, but because if I'm not doing my best, there's really not any point in doing it at all.  When I expect to do my best and I somehow don't do as well as I know I could, then I get upset and start beating myself up mentally.  If I expect that my best will get me about 80% on an assignment and I get 85%, well that's just icing on the cake.

School is one thing.  Life is quite another.  At school, everything we do is marked, and after a while we know what amount of effort will yield a certain number (grade) that is an acceptable result to us.  In life, results aren't always numbers.  In business classes, we learn that the best way to see how we are doing is to compare ourselves against industry averages.  I suppose that works okay for work, but there are so many variables on the farm, that even that will prove difficult.  Leaving work aside, there are also personal relationships to worry about.  My sister will testify under oath that I can be pretty awkward in social situations.  Sometimes, I just can't wrap my head around how I'm suppose to respond in whatever situation I'm in.  All I can do is to measure how those around me react to my reaction.  In social settings, I'm basically trying to please those around me because it's the only way for me to tell if I'm behaving in a proper manner.  When I fail, it's disappointing.  That's especially true when I step out of my regular "sit back, be quiet, and listen" mode and try to actually contribute.  If I fall flat then, I'm not real likely to try again for a while.  Unfortunately for those who seem to like it when I speak up, my definition of failure is a lot harsher than others'.  If I get nervous and forget to say something or stumble over my words, or embarrass myself, that's a failure.

The worst is when I think I've failed not just myself, but others as well.  Team projects are extremely stressful for me because I refuse to be the reason my team fails.  If the project isn't up to my high standards for my own work, I'll add to it, taking time and attention from more important projects and assignments.  Fortunately I have had some really good teams this year for projects in most of my classes, but it's still stressful.  I don't want to be the reason something big failed.  My worst fear is that I will finish school, go home, work hard, and drive the farm into the ground.  That will be a huge personal disappointment.  More than that, though, I think I will have disappointed my family and relatives, because I will have destroyed the family farm.

School is a wonderful place because we get to dream big dreams and work out dozens of possibilities on paper without putting the farm in jeopardy.  The real world is a scary place, though.  Yes, there are still times when we can dream big dreams and work out possibilities on paper, but sometimes the dreams crash and reality just doesn't work out the way it was supposed to on paper.  And that is really frustrating.

This has been a really pessimistic post.  I know from experience that there are many good times on the farm and that life is not about results.  However, there are times when fears and worries crowd in.  Those days are reality, too.  Today is one of those days.

Contacts

I’ve been thinking lately about how important it is to have good contacts in the farming industry.  Come to think about it, it’s important to have good contacts in any industry.  While I’m not exactly a social butterfly, I have been starting to connect with more and more people in the agriculture industry, and in related industries, and I find myself wanting to connect with more people.  Earlier this year I was mainly just aiming to make friends.  That worked out really well. 

I now have way more friends than I quite know what to do with, and a lot of them have turned out to be valuable contacts.  In fact, the other day I was in a discussion with a few of my friends about celebrating Pi Day.  I hadn’t had pie that day.  I was cooped up in my apartment doing homework.  One of my friends said that he had a whole pie to himself and he was looking for people to share it with, but “everyone was out of town.”  A few of us quickly made sure to tell him that we were, in fact, in town and would have loved to share his pie.  One thing led to another and soon I was jokingly acting offended and threatening to “unfriend” him.  I had meant in the literal sense of the word, but one of our other friends made a comment about the unfriending becoming “Facebook official.”  I didn’t say so, but I immediately thought, “oh no, I wouldn’t unfriend him on Facebook even if I did unfriend him in real life.  He’s much too valuable of a contact for that.”

That sounds a little harsh and I admit I surprised myself with that.  To be clear, I am not about to toss aside any friendships anytime soon.  The point I’m trying to make is that it’s really great to have made friends who know more about farming than I do (not that I know much).  Any time I get stuck or confused about a concept in class, all I have to do is track down one of my friends and ask about it.  It seems that there are certain subjects that I'm weak in, particularly on the livestock side of farming.  Fortunately, I have plenty of friends and classmate who are always willing to teach me what I don't know.  It good to be able to ask them for help when I need it.

I want to be able to do that even once I leave school, to track down people who know more than I do and to learn from them.  I want to keep getting to know mechanics, vets, agricultural lenders, and other farmers.  I’m starting to figure out that farming is not a solitary adventure.  It’s a community achievement.  Sometimes friends and neighbours help me with a problem and sometimes I can help them.  My wish is to be a contributing member of the community, to help and be helped, and to make the community stronger.