Staring at Your Crib

Steers waiting to be fed

Staring at Your Crib

It’s that season!  The season where the frost has turned the green grass brown and snow often covers the entire field where my steers were grazing and frolicking from spring through most of the fall.  This all means I need to deliver their food to a feeder crib.

A feeder crib is also called a manger or feeding trough.  In my case it is located very near the hay barn so I can more easily carry the nutritious hay I purchase annually from Scott Droubay Farms to it.  Now, less than one month into the yearly cold weather feeding cycle, all of my steers keep within close proximity, rarely venturing out to dance joyfully in their pasture.  When I venture out to feed them I’ve noticed that they’ve become strangely loyal to it, standing, staring at their crib.

Their winter crib gaze shouldn’t surprise me.  I’ve seen it over and over again, season after season.  Yet, for some reason, this particular occurrence has left a lasting impression on me as I remembered something Robert A. Heinlein said.  “In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.”

Nowadays I started asking myself, are you and I wasting the minutes, hours and days of our lives wandering around hoping to bump into a clear direction, good idea, or lucky break while we simply stand and stare at our cribs, crudely designed to keep us fat and not so happy?  Or, are we designing our lives based on our personal, powerful passions, strongest skills and highest aspirations? 

Few would place anything higher than quality of life. Yet, we all need to come to terms with the fact that success isn’t an accident, but rather a purposeful pursuit of specific outcomes.  And, if success isn’t an accident, why do so few of us have motivating clarity about our daily activities?  It is a question to be reflected on, with an accompanying statement that can be made in two differing forms.

“Someday I’ll get there.”

Or.

“Someday, I’ll get there!”

Are you and I asking ourselves, really, what day, how and more importantly, Why?  And, will it really matter to me when I get there?  After all, I can think of nothing sadder than to see someone work a lifetime only to find that they didn’t want what they got in the end.  You see, there is more to life than staring at your crib!

It’s that season!  The season where the frost has turned the green grass brown and snow often covers everything in our lives.  And, it’s the right time for all of us to look at where we’d really like to be grazing and frolicking, from now until our lives reach their autumn.  This all means we need to deliver more than just further food on our plates.

You can I can clearly define what our lives could look like, so we don’t become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately, we become enslaved by it.