Crisis Brings Clarity [Start Your Week]

There’s an old saying that says, “Crisis brings Clarity.”

A crisis is defined as something that interferes with your normal pattern of living. Most often a real crisis is considered to be the result of unexpected trauma such as a major loss, illness or environmental issue that interferes with your livelihood or your life. A crisis of those magnitudes often means being dislodged from your current situation. It creates a feeling; an internal emotion that makes us anxious and confused because most crisis are so overwhelming; we can’t handle them ourselves. We feel vulnerable, unsure of ourselves and helpless. When we experience a real crisis, it becomes obvious that the usual way we handle problems doesn’t work.  

But a crisis can be both an opportunity and danger. A crisis can be dangerous if you allow the problem to overwhelm you and cause so much anxiety and pain that you become depressed, unable to do anything to solve the situation. A crisis can also be an opportunity when it causes us to open our mind and seek new ways to cope. It can cause us to think more clearly about a situation, forcing us to develop new skills, increasing our competence and making us permanently stronger. 

Every year farmers are faced with something many wouldn’t call a crisis, but I do. It’s called harvest and to me it’s more than just a challenge, it’s a crisis because it involves their entire livelihood. The challenge of raising a crop in an environment that is often almost impossible to navigate can put many farmers into crisis mode, at least mentally. They become frustrated about things they did or did not do throughout the year to help avert the crisis, especially when the crop doesn’t meet their expectations or their needs. When yield results come in, it becomes clearer to growers what they need to do to improve their crop and avert any chances of a crisis occurring the next year. Every harvest could be defined as a time of crisis for farmers. It’s the time when they’re able to have a clearer view of what to do to improve on next year’s results.  The crisis brought on by harvest definitely brings clarity...