A lot of times in life - we avoid situations that look imposing and not friendly. When faced with the choice, a human’s natural desire is to be safe and conservative. Know what you know, do what you do. But if we chose not to step into areas that may not be something we are used to, we wouldn’t grow. The past generations of ours who first came to Iowa to farm and had to deal with the marshy lands of Wright County. They laid countless miles of clay tile to drain the swamps (the fields) and they looked at this area as an area of opportunity not as unfriendly and not worth it. They chose to fight and survived and succeeded. This is our legacy and we’ve inherited those genes.
I remember the story of the nuns who hiked across Montana and set up a hospital*. Did they say to each other … “nah, I’ll sit this one out, catch me on the flip side” … No, they didn’t, they did what they needed to do.
I fear that we are now in a place in society, that if we don’t have an app for it, a recipe, a plan or a machine to make it easier, we’ll probably just move on to the next thing. I’m going to try and call forth the fortitude of the early settlers, the first farmers and the blizzard walking nuns and use this strength in my next projects. Let’s be those who forge the new roads and come up with the innovative ideas. The only thing stopping us is us.
*Don’t quote me on this. I heard the story and in my recollection they were hiking in a blizzard in their nun clothes to set up a hospital probably uphill the entire way … in the 1800’s or early 1900’s. It made quite an impression on me when I first heard it.
