Life in the dairy world hasn’t been fun. 

There are more bills coming in than there is milk check to cover them. We have witnessed a collapse of Class III from highs of $26 to nearly $13 a hundredweight (cwt) at the time of this writing. While we have seen some relief on the corn and soybean side, all other input costs seem to have exploded. 

Much of farming has been trying to convince the government that we don’t make money and convince our bankers that we do; however, these days it’s hard not to wince when you see the banker’s name pop up on the phone. 

We have oscillations in weather that can make or break our year. There are employees who can make life feel like a constant battle. The agriculture industry has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, and it seems every small community has not escaped this sad and ugly side of humanity. 

There is no simple answer. 

We are living in a time where seemingly by every metric, life is better. We can order pizza from our phone, we can plant more acres of higher-yielding crops than ever before. We can go to the grocery store and have mountains of fruits and vegetables year-round. 

Life is so good, and yet we are unhappy.

In my humble opinion, the social media experiment has consequences we don’t fully understand. Teen girl suicide rates have exploded with the advent of social media. Home used to be a safe place and escape from bullying, but it is not anymore. We tend to showcase our best vacation, our best selfie, our newest car, and as we look around we compare everyone else's life to our own. 

Mrs. Faber has a husband who is a lot chubbier in person and not nearly as funny. Her car isn’t as new as the cool kids, and date nights consist of McDonald’s where a kid ends up throwing up chocolate milk on the drive home.

A hundred years ago, people would get a couple of news stories a week. The Titanic sunk, the price of sugar went up 2 cents and Old Man McPherson contracted typhoid fever on the Oregon Trail. Today, we are inundated. We have 24-hour sports, news and opinions. Every evening we can tune into local news and get depressed by every apartment fire, murder, abduction and killer new disease. We tune into talking heads that convince us everything is bad, and there are monsters everywhere trying to destroy us. Tune in again next week so we can interpret every bad news story. Fear sells. 

For me, learning to unplug and not needing to know everything, nor have an opinion on everything has been helpful. 

For much of us in the farming world, farming is much more than a job; farming is an identity. We pride ourselves on the hours we have worked, the number of cows we milk, the number of acres we farm. We introduce ourselves as farmers, we talk farming when we are in social settings, our vacations are going to farming events, and we have missed meals and events because of farming. 

What happens when we aren’t successful as farmers? What happens when we have to make a career change? Our identity has been farming for decades, potentially generations. A failure in farming can seemingly mean a failure as a person, and not having an identity in life going forward. As Christians, we are taught that an idol is something that is more important than anything else in life. We sacrifice everything for it. Farming can be our idol. 

What is the most important thing in your life? It should be family, friends and faith. If this is your identity, you can navigate any downturn and any trial. We should be able to see our life without farming. If we had to grab our lunch bucket and go to work in the coal mines to provide for our family, we should be content with that because our identity is outside of being a farmer. For many in the world, they struggle because they don’t have an identity or are confused on what identity to choose. In his book, A Man’s Search For Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes those who survived in Nazi concentration camps as people who had a purpose outside of themselves. It was a man who hoped for a chance to see his wife again one day. It was a Christian whose Bible told her to be content in all circumstances. 

Learning to see that what we do is for those around us helps us navigate any trial life has in store. Find your why. As for me, we have a family photo coming up and I need to lose 18 pounds in three days. ‘Til next time.