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October 2005 Issue
It's your choice
by Jennifer Shike
“Contentment is a choice we make, not a set of circumstances.”
One of the most powerful testimonies to a person’s character is to watch someone go through a difficult time.
I wish that I could say every time I’ve experienced a hardship, I chose to be content despite my circumstances.
I am learning that I really can choose my response in any situation – just because something bad happens to me, it doesn’t mean that I have to respond negatively. In fact, when I choose to find the good in the bad or to endure rather than give up, I find that it helps me move on and get past that difficult period much faster.
I left for the NJSA Southwest Regional on Wed., Aug. 31 – just two days after the tragic Hurricane Katrina. During the 12-hour drive down to Wichita Falls, Texas, I heard story after story of the devastation along the Gulf Coast.
Being a product of the Midwest, it’s hard for me to imagine what they must be going through. The pictures and the video footage only shed a small light on what’s really happening down there.
Despite the devastation and losses that these survivors faced, many of them continued to press on.Instead of giving up and moving out for good, I’m amazed by the reports of families who are going to rebuild and who want to stay. Are they happy that this happened? Of course not! But as I listened to the stories of survivors, I could see their decision to move on and be content, despite the disaster they faced.
When I arrived at the Southwest Regional, I met a family whose lives had just been turned upside down by a house fire that claimed many of their personal belongings and possessions just a week before the show. They are starting all over and rebuilding from the ground up.It has definitely been a dark period in their lives, but they haven’t given up. They have chosen not to wrap themselves in self-pity, but to move forward together as a family.
A few weeks before the show at the Iowa State Fair, I ran into some good friends of mine in the swine industry. They had just experienced a very difficult week where a member of their family had committed suicide after suffering for 20-plus years with a debilitating disease.
I asked one of the family members how they were doing and how they were able to make it through the state fair.
She just smiled and said, “My family is here in this barn right now. And I need to be with them.”
She wasn’t just talking about her blood relatives. She was talking about her family in the swine industry – the friends she has spent so much of her life with.
Throughout my travels these past two months, I’ve had the opportunity to witness our family in action – supporting, encouraging and helping each other get through the good and the bad.
At the Southwest Regional and the NBS® Junior Barrow Classic, I was refreshed and lifted up by the people in attendance. Attitudes were great, sportsmanship was at a high and everyone seemed to come together with the same purpose in mind. Even though only a few families walked home with the champion titles, it seemed that people chose to be content anyway.
And really, why shouldn’t we be?
We have so much to be thankful for in the NJSA. The ability to attend shows across the country with our family and friends is a lot to be thankful for – with or without the blue ribbon.
I encourage you all to find contentment not in the circumstances that surround your life right now, but rather in the decision that only you can make to be content anyway.
Life is too short to waste time wondering why these circumstances have happened to us. Instead, choose contentment. What can it hurt?
