I have an abiding and profound respect for they who toil in earth, those fierce souls who cultivate and, in doing so, allow others to flourish. Their pursuits are in and of themselves noble, for they serve the greater good. However, that is not why I so appreciate those who sow and reap. I admire farmers because they stand tall against unmitigated forces: winds that pull up soil and tear down walls, life giving rains that kill and erode, droughts that lay bare skeleton of crop and earth. These are people who know what it means to endure, their every experience chiseled in face and hand. They are the consummate little guy, the undercard, the David who faces Goliath and wins. They gave rise to civilization in quite corners because they refused to yield. While we may be distant from farm and field, the farmer still has much to teach us, such as how to furrow our brow, dig deep, and muster the courage and certitude to soldier on in life's hardest times.
I believe we live at a turning point. We have built a house of cards upon the notion that we are all, in someway, aggrieved; that we should be beneficiaries of some social debt unpaid; that the fault in our stars is really the fault of the stars. This great fiction of our age robs us our conviction in headwinds, our resolve in hard times. We have a ready made excuse, that through the failings of others, of hazy systems, of conspiracies of bad chance, we are arrived at our current condition. Woe unto us. The real threat of this notion is that it denies us agency. We are, if it holds true, subject to forces beyond our control. If we have no agency, no mechanisms of self-control, how easy it is to relinquish our responsibility, perhaps our morality. We are at risk of becoming the farmer who, at first light, rolls over and goes back to sleep in spite of all that must be done. We are at risk of becoming a people waiting to be saved from phantoms and doings of our own construction.
Resiliency is forged in the crucible of life. We must rise from our falls. We must weather life's storms. We must face and reconcile our foibles and miscues and outright mistakes. We must endure hard things, and small. We must challenge our fears, and face our shortcomings. Sometimes, we must endure. Other times, we must change our ways, our focus, our mindset.
Our children will struggle from time to time. They won't always get the grade they want, or the friend or sweetheart they desire. They won't always enjoy the success for which they long. They will fall flat on their faces. Sometimes their best efforts won't be enough. They won't always feel good about things. They will cry foul, gnash their teeth, cast aspersions, lay blame, claim injustice. Sometimes their charges will be true, other times they will not. In short, it's all part of growing up, and we can't protect our children from doing so without risk to their resolve, to their resiliency.
Our children deserve our empathy. Sympathy is another story. We should always hear out their concerns, their disappointments. We can acknowledge their feelings and thoughts without becoming subject to them. We must listen and counsel. Ideally, we coach our children through their difficulties, and teach them how to solve their problems all on their own. In this way, we prepare them for adulthood, for the world that awaits, and foster their resiliency. After all, the true measure of humankind is not how many times we fall down, but how many times we get back up.
See you around campus.