Every single day opportunities arise and decisions are made, whether that’s what to eat for lunch, or what college best fits your needs. Throughout the race that we call high school a whirlwind of opportunities is at your fingertips, anywhere from moment-changing to life altering. However, through those times it may feel that you are falling behind. Your peers seem like they have more money than you, nicer vehicles, colleges picked out, and their life set. It’s important to remember that growth happens over time.
FFA teaches us that success takes time. A successful crop does not produce its fruit the next day, it takes preparation, patience, hard work, and time. The same is true for us. Oftentimes we put pressure on ourselves to know ourselves and know where we are in life. We worry about grades, friendships, sports, activities, careers, and the expectations of others. We get so wrapped up in the thought of failure that when a mistake is made we don’t know how to recover. The fact is that failure is like a fertilizer towards growth, you can do without but you will never reach your maximum potential without it.
Your FFA career is like a seed. When it is planted you don’t know what will happen or what it will become. It simply needs the right conditions and helpful people to take care of it. We may not know what we want to do, or how to get there, but with every experience, challenge, mistake, and success we are shaping the people we will become. You may not be satisfied with the person you are now, but the person you will be in 5 years will be determined by the decisions you make today.
Your future is not built by one big moment, memory, or event. It’s built by thousands of small decisions that shape your tomorrow. So overall be patient with yourself, take time to appreciate the things you have accomplished, and soak up every moment you have, because in a blink of an eye your future will become the present. So make the times count, make it meaningful, make it something that you will be proud to remember, because in the end you won’t remember the position you started with, but the growth you experienced along the way.
