Kansas FFA Sentinel

Hiding or Seeking Your Passions

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Meyer) — Mon, 22 Dec 2014 00:14:00 +0000

Eighteen, Nineteen, Twenty: Ready or not here I come! I stayed hunkered down in my perfect hiding spot. Now, just to be clear, there are not that many spots that can hide a 6 foot 2 inch 275 pound college freshmen so I had to really pick and choose. I was at my grandma's house for the weekend and I was playing with my cousins who were very energetic little girls. I was the last to be found and shortly after we started the next round.

This simple little game got me thinking though. My cousins, like all little kids their age had played the game with so much energy and passion. They frantically searched through the house and cheered every time that they found someone. This game was something that they were obviously very passionate about and they didn't care who knew about it.

Merriam-Webster defines it as a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something. I've found that the way we look at our passions can be like the game of hide and seek. We can either hide our passions or actively seek out what we are passionate for and pursue it. If we choose to seek our passions we may find ourselves living much more involved lives.

When I was in elementary school, I got to watch Marion High School perform Beauty and the Beast. Secretly I loved the performance and kind of wanted to be a part of it, but decided it wasn't cool. I wasn't going to seek this opportunity out because I didn't think it was cool. That all changed with a couple of words. Brett Billings, one of the lead characters and player on the football team (very cool), said, "I'll be watching you up here in a few years right?", and I of course answered "Yes sir!". Well, 7 years later as I finished the final musical of my high school career, and all I could see was his face telling me that I could do it. That little sentence encouraged me to seek my passion rather than hide from it.

Howard Thurman said, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Seeking our passions can seem scary at first, but it will reward us much more than we ever thought possible. People who seek out their passions rather than hiding from them are the people who will come alive. So I ask you, will you decide to seek your passions rather than hiding from them?

From the Country to the City: A Big Change

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Meyer) — Mon, 13 Oct 2014 21:47:00 +0000

When people ask where I live, I sometimes told them to drive to the middle of nowhere and then keep going. I lived 20-25 minutes from school, 45 minutes from the nearest Walmart, and 1 hour from the nearest movie theatre. Now, I walk 3 blocks to school everyday, can make Walmart round trip in 15 minutes, and am 5 minutes from the movie theatre in Manhattan. It’s my 7th week in the big city, and I am just starting to make sense of city life. Moving to Manhattan has been a huge change for me to experience.

Change is a very interesting thing. Some people strongly dislike change, while others love everything about it. I am not saying that one is right and one is wrong, but I will say that society is experiencing a lot of it. How many different types of iPhone’s have we seen just in the past five years? The important thing about change is to treat is as an opportunity to grow. In the past week, I had the opportunity to travel to the Southwest District Greenhand Conference where their theme was “Grow in FFA”. I watched members grow by changing their thoughts about FFA and agriculture.

How can change benefit you? What are its negative effects? What can be accomplished by changing the standard and thinking outside the box? All these questions immediately come to mind because it can a scary thought to change. Despite these frights remember that change causes growth. This week I challenge you to think of one way that you can change something in your daily routine. Take note of the effects and then begin applying change to those areas of your life where you want to grow. It can seem scary at first, but it has the power to cause growth. Gavin Degraw has a song called “Everything Will Change.” There are a couple of lines that describe change very well. It’s starting like a fire, tonight you lit the flame. What will happen when you light the fire of change in your life?

Homemade High Expectations

noreply@blogger.com (Nick Meyer) — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 16:34:00 +0000

It’s the weekend of the 4th of July. Like most families on the 4th, we fly the flag, grill some hamburgers, have a little too much fun with fireworks, and my personal favorite, make some homemade ice cream. Now, I have always used a hand freezer to make the ice cream. My dad used to do all the work while I sat and watched, but now that I have gotten a little bit bigger I often find myself doing a lot of the work. “It builds character” is my dad’s response anytime we prepare to make another batch.

This 4th of July was no different as I took my place in the chair and began to turn the hand crank. Now you may think that I am a little weird, but I counted how many times I turned the crank. One hundred with the right and a hundred with the left, it helps me to keep both arms equally as strong. After about five hundred, it was still really easy to turn so I began to worry. Like I said, homemade ice cream is quite possibly my favorite part of the 4th so I hoped that I had not ruined it. I pushed on for another three hundred turns until my dad took over for me so I could go eat supper. After a couple of minutes my dad brought the ice cream maker in and had that look of worry on his face. I was terrified. I had ruined the annual 4th of July ice cream and worse yet, I did not get any! As my mom took the lid off we waited in suspense to see the finished product. The result was a ring of frozen ice cream about two inches thick around the edge and a middle of unfrozen ingredients.

Though I was worried because I did not think there was going to be enough we had just enough for everyone to enjoy the perfect finish to the 4th of July. When I started, I expected to have everything work perfectly and more ice cream than I knew what to do with. My little ice cream fiasco taught me that what you set out for or what your expectations are may not always be the outcome.

How often do we expect one thing, but get another? Just because we don’t get what we expect does not necessarily make it bad. I used to be guilty of thinking that if it did not come out exactly as planned, it was a failure. As we face challenges this year it’s important to remember that they may not always go as planned. Norman Vincent Peale once said, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” This year I challenge you to shoot for the moon and don’t be afraid if things don’t turn out perfectly because some of the rewards we get may be just as sweet as homemade ice cream.