One of the most important skills you can learn is to prioritize. It requires mastering the emotions, not letting them rule you, but you learning to control them. In some areas of this category, buying "things", and particularly if I am feeling a little vulnerable on a particular day, and oddly, mostly at the end of a long day, I will browse on the internet, looking for material solutions to a problem I am having on the property. I call my property The Ark. This name holds many beautiful concepts for me.
Sometimes I often have consecutive days in a row that are fraught with challenges of the nature that if I do not make the extra effort to stay balanced emotionally, to take the time and still myself, then it gathers momentum; and although it seems I have "handled" the vulnerability....it pops up at the end of the day when sitting in front of the computer I veer toward finding a solution that money can solve. Clearly not remembering the concepts of Ark......I should be looking within for the solution, not outwardly.
Almost without fail, I have found these purchases to be money ill-spent and cost me time that I could have better spent by stilling the emotions so I could see the correct answer to the problem. This is where we learn, over time, to discern what was an actual need, and what was just a emotional reflex to outside circumstances. In other words, we are also learning to discriminate whether we are actually looking for a solution to a problem with something needing physical addressing on the farm, or are we responding to an emotional need for instant comfort; which for many is buying something. Eating too much food is another way we can respond to anxiousness.
I will give you an example. I had a challenging summer last year. I am in the process of breeding out my own seasonal vegetables. Common sense says that me buying seeds from a geographical region that is opposite of mine is going to create problems. This is why I became so interested in the land-race concept (a later post). No matter how grand a seed catalog looks - I mean we see nothing but perfect plants with perfect fruit, perfect everything right? Do we really think they have no problems with disease, with pestilence? We'd like to think that buying that seed will guarantee a gen-u-wine fairy tale jack in the beanstalk. IT DOES NOT! For a long time I tried to keep believing that if I bought new seed, instead of saving my seeds, well......how could I go wrong. So I was not perceiving correctly a need from an emotional desire.
Perfect anything does not happen over night. I knew that but I just wanted to BELIEVE - LOL. It takes a lot of Love, a lot of Patience. Decades upon decades. Luther Burbank went thru 100,000, yes 100,000 trials to come up with the spineless cactus. Hmmm. No technique is going to save you no matter what anyone says. It is the Love, the Patience, the Kindness that you show to the land that will reap you the rewards and really, with few exceptions, no wondrous doo-dad is going to miraculously create a Garden of Eden. It is you that is the cornerstone. Not the seed, not the perfect technique, not the fertilizer. You.
So....I just couldn't get a handle on this, I had successes then failures. Even this year. After all this time. I spent $300 on a vortex worm castings maker. What a joke. What was I thinking? I ended up dismantling it and using the different parts to create actual useful things. It was an emotional response to the pestilence problem I had with seeds from a company that I should not have ever bought. See how it can run away from you? If we don't get a good mastery of this skill, we will always be chasing our tail.
My answer to this problem was to admit that I haven't quite mastered this skill yet. I still have those days from time to time, and those lapses cost me money I could have spent wisely elsewhere. I need new potable water hoses. I could have bought 3 new hoses for what that darn vortex cost me.
One method that can help you master this skill is to wait. I have a rule with myself, wait one week. If I still think I need it, I reassess, then I probably will buy it. I broke my own rule with the vortex. It was late at night and I bought into the PR of the the guy selling it. Why is it something seems so convincing late at night that we wouldn't have considered in the noon day sun - LOL. I know myself pretty well. I actually do know when I should not be buying something I don't need. It is there, in my solar plexus....that anxious feeling...I hear it, I feel it, DON'T it is saying. And sometimes I am not brave; I give in. I want an answer NOW. Buying this will solve the problem.....then I won't be anxious (laughing at myself)
I will tell you one more story, then its off to fix oatmeal. I live on a mesa, the winds are often 30mph with 50mph gusts. We actually, yep, here in the desert, had a tornado here a couple years back. Not just a wind whirly masquerading but an actual 90mph tornado. So....a couple of weeks ago the wind ripped a 3x3 foot piece of roofing off one of my grow houses where I grow summer vegetables under lights in the winter. Tropical fruit tree starts for the greenhouse. I became very very anxious.
How will I fix this, oh my. I am 5'4", 110 pounds, I will NEVER be able to get a roll of tarpaper and a roll of roll roofing up there by myself. Fret. worry. My knee jerk answer was to immediately spend $50 on a 12 mil tarp, thinking to myself, well, I don't want to deal with this, I'll just cover the hole with a tarp.
Okay, I know, what WAS I thinking? That the wind wasn't going to do the same thing to the tarp? I am a very spiritual person...my life is governed in all ways by this spiritual commitment. I was having these visions of water deluge, leaking thru the roof, ruining the ceiling, well....you get the idea. Letting my emotions rule instead of knowing that this challenge had a perfect answer just like every other challenge that has come to me for the last 30 years. So I calmed myself. Had to return the tarp.
Still, no answer. I waited. My emotions kept saying "its going to rain, everything will be ruined". I told them to shut up. THEN....the inner direction. I was led to a product on Amazon that is a rubber roof sealant that you paint on. I have used it on my RVs (storage) I have here but that stuff called Liquid Roof, can not be used on asphalt roofing. But Lo and Behold, they do make it for asphalt roofing. Now, of course this is a temporary fix. But then I got more direction. I could now build the double roof system which is so popular in the Middle East. And yes, I CAN carry up sheets of galvanized roofing.
See? We can do this girls, we can.
DOUBLE ROOF SYSTEM
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