I wonder if a farmer feels motivated each morning on the 120 days of work before harvest?
The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer. ~ Will Rogers
MY grandfather was a farmer, my Mother’s Father, I always admired him. They, he and my Grandmother, stopped farming when he turned fifty and moved into the city. The work just began to take it’s toll on his body, all the physical labor.
Motivation had finally run out, but he did not stop working, instead went down to the Farm City Supply store and shared his decades of knowledge with those still toiling.
Farming is really unique as a way of earning a living, think about it. In Agriculture one must do much work before there is any payoff.
Plowing, fertilizing, seeding, watering, insect fighting, harvesting and finally transporting to market. This adds up to a bunch of days where one may not feel like getting out there.
And then there is the money. Money earned by those crops has to last until the next planting, maybe with some milk and egg money trickling in daily along the way.
As a young man, most often working and living hand to mouth, this intrigued me. A creative life can be the same in many ways.
It’s understood more today, as I have spent a decade creating 10,000 images and traveled to every state in the USA. A feat not completed without some motivation or lack thereof mixed in along the way.
Days do appear after flying or driving to some location when the juice is just not there, what then?
It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in the Autumn. ~ B. C. Forbes
It’s at those times I think of Grandpa Harold. Sometimes the evidence of labor can not be seen, before the seed breaks though the earth. Or, half way along when the naked eye can not see any evidence of growth.
But if he stops, not only does the work he has already done go to waste, he also never realizes the gain brought by the harvest.
It’s easy to get stopped, especially when we are trying to earn money with the endeavor. Some of us have been conditioned by the working world, work a 40 week and get a check 2 weeks later.
Would we still get up and go to work if the checks started bouncing? Well, there’s a timely question with the recent Government shutdown, let’s try to stay on point.
I inherited that calm from my father, who was a farmer. You sow, you wait for good or bad weather, you harvest, but working is something you always need to do. ~ Miguel Indurain
Maybe one key exists in the last quote, “the working is something you always need to do”
For me, as a photographer, somewhere along the line realization came that I had always done it for free, why stop now. I also added a dutiful aspect to it, documenting people, places and things for humanity. It’s important, a visual contribution to our history.
In the article How to make yourself work when you don’t have any motivation Aytekin Tank writes:
Similarly, if you think something is boring or unpleasant, you need to take your feelings out of the equation and decide in advance exactly when and where you’ll do it.
So, during times when grey overcast skies dominate, when my motivation is justifiable lacking, I think of the farmer. What would he do?
He would get up and do the work for the sake of the fact that he needs to as a human being. Working as a way to live.
Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. ~ Satchel Paige
The man is this picture was doing it all. He moved the tractor trailer into the field. Then ran the combine until full, bringing it over emptying it into the trailer.
Later on, he will drive the semi truck into the local silo and transfer it beginning it’s journey to market.
Countless break downs will occur as he does all these tasks with a variety of machines. The payoff has to be in the satisfaction that comes in looking at, reading, or eating the final product.
The chance for him to hold a boll of Cotton, as pictured above, and say “look at this”
Once, I managed a furniture store and one of the staff asked if he could talk to me. He was ready to quit, was under performing, not feeling his toil was important enough to work long hours and get “no” signals and “we’re just looking” comments from alleged buyers.
He was also calling in sick at a rate which should have got him fired, 33 times the previous year.
I simply asked him two questions: “what is the most important purchase your prospective clients might make in their lifetime” he answered reluctantly, “a house.” Right, I said, “now, what is the most important thing that they need in those houses to make them homes” I asked.
He smiled slowly, never even answered me and sprung up from the chair saying “thanks” as he exited the office. The next month he was the top sales person out of 15. His own MADE UP idea of the importance of his vocational choice as a salesman had changed.
He now saw himself as helping others in one of the most important endeavors of their lives creating a comfortable home. One change in perception, one new decision, all leading to new energy and motivation.
He is the reason I write, for the chance to share hopefully touching just one person. If I don’t suit up, show up, and put the work in, there is no chance for me to do that, no chance at all!
Cheers, Christopher
