Like this asian rice farmer, some days are just not easy to get through. The suction of the mud on the hooves of the beast and the patient farmer do not make rice farming in monsoon season much fun at all.
We can all relate to those days when the spark and magic is gone and we see ourselves plodding through the fields wondering how and why we got onto this track. The rice farmer keeps going for one simple reason - no rice, no food.
Thankfully we can fly things through the sky, and as crappy as we may feel, we look at the tops whiz by the cockpit window on an otherwise dreary overcast day and we can regress to the 12 year old inside ourselves and say “Wow, that is cool… I’m going fast… and it’s sunny here on top.”
People (especially sales people and pilots) tend to thrive on novelty. However, once you have been working at something for what feels like eons, unless you truly love it, you will find yourself wondering quietly whether you can handle another second of flying that same plane on that same route, picking up the same clearance, dealing with the same problems in the same place.
While postal workers might be the best examples of what happens to a long psychological simmer, the lesson learned for the rest of us is simple - variety is the spice of life. If you cannot make your daily, weekly or even annual regimen include a little variety, then every day could easily feel like the rice farmer’s during monsoon season.
No industrial psychologist would disagree that happier and energized worker bees are ones that find purpose in what they do. So, as you pick up that clearance tonight, to head off to wherever you head off to, remember, at least it is a new place that you’ve never been to before, and if it is not, do something outlandish and different when you get there. (Just do that part after you’ve landed, shut down, and entered the safety of the FBO.)
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