Why I'm Going Back to the Farm

Reader Contribution by Robert White
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I’m plotting a revolution. It’s a personal one, but it’s a revolution just the same. At age 49, I’m reinventing myself as a farmer.

I consider myself a work in progress, a diamond in the rough, and particularly a late bloomer. I’ve looked at people who have happily held the same career their whole lives with envy. I’ve never felt that passionate about anything until recently. At times I feel like I’m ADHD, as my attention is easily distracted by something different all the time. There are lots of things I think I would enjoy in a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none way, which has led me down lots of various job tracks.

But over the course of the last couple of years, I have been experiencing increasing job dissatisfaction. It actually goes beyond dissatisfaction to borderline depression, hopelessness and despondency.

One day a particular email in my inbox caught my eye. It was from Dave Ramsey of debt-free living fame. A simple thing struck me about the short article. It said, “Stop looking out there, outside of yourself; look back at your past to find what you love.” Another article I read recently said pretty much the same thing but added to it: Look for something you have done where you weren’t aware of time.

That really got me thinking. What is it that I enjoyed in my past? So my mind was drawn to several snapshots from my younger years with experiences with gardening, experiences on the farm, in the outdoors. Right now, I sit in a cubicle, in front of a computer monitor, sometimes on the phone, contrary to being outdoors as in my growing-up years on the farm.

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