MY LIFE - MOVING AT THE SPEED OF MY LEARNING CURVE

I'm having to learn a whole new set of skills just to progress these days.

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So I'll be honest here (not that I would consider doing otherwise) I don't exactly have a lot of experience in certain areas of life. When I grew up, I didn't like work all that much. I pretended to be afraid of the vacuum cleaner for years, and never had to vacuum. I did a horrible job on the riding lawnmower, so my younger brother had to take over.

As I grew things didn't change much. I would buy fast food rather than cooking, have someone else change my oil, and basically only do what I wanted to do, which was mostly partying. Other than when I needed a paycheck, I didn't really work hard at anything. Basically, I became a giant lazy child.

As I grew older, I became an older, giant lazy child. Bringing such a skill set into my marriage and now my parenting was not really a huge benefit. Trying to adjust into the homesteading lifestyle has come with a learning curve, but thankfully I remain humble and teachable.

AGE ISN'T A FACTOR

In my neighborhood, there are seventeen year old kids who know more about a lot of things than I do. Simply put, they grew up differently than I did and therefore have a different understanding and skill set than I do. When I used to lay hardwood flooring in the Branson, MO area, I had to take quite a bit of instruction from the main contractors seventeen year old son.

For some, "being bossed around" by someone half their age may not be appreciated. However, this "kid" has been around this type of work his entire life and is now becoming the fourth generation of hardwood floor guys in his family. Even by helping his dad during summer vacation he would have been exposed to more of that particular job than I would, having never done it before.

It is not the age of man that matters in a situation like this, it is the understanding. If I would prefer to not receive help or pointers from someone a few decades younger than me because of pride, then I could continue being ignorant and miss out the understanding that he could impart.

A lot of the work that I am currently doing on my land is able to be done more quickly by using heavy machinery. I actually have friends who have lent me their tractors, skid steers, and a stump grinder. However, I have no experience in any of this. I've never operated these types of machines before. It is a huge blessing that someone would let me use theirs, but they have their own lives and own business to take care of. To get the job done, I'll need to do it.

MOVING AT THE SPEED OF MY LEARNING CURVE

Because I have no previous experience with these things, how quickly the tasks get completed depend on how quickly I can learn how to do it. Also, I am then responsible for maintaining the equipment. I've spent some time and money making sure that things like oil, hydraulic fluid, and diesel fuel level are all being maintained.

Also, to prepare the house site on my land I have to periodically switch between the stump grinder and the angle blade that I user for scraping. This means detaching one attachment and hooking up the other. Sometimes it can be trickier than you would think, especially for a novice.

Earlier this week I had to have another teenager help tell me what to do. He's an incredibly capable young man with a lot of experience in certain things, while I'm mostly clueless but willing to learn. In some weeks of his life he's probably dealt more with tractors than I have my entire life. How could I not allow him to tell me what to do?

It's not only my learning curve, but my willingness to be taught that is going to allow me to succeed in these things. In order to learn the skills that I need, I must be taught. If the only one available to teach me is a "kid," then I had better be willing to let him teach me.

I haven't really equipment like this before, but I haven't even really used tools before either. I'm not proud of it, it's just the way that I chose to live my life. Now, I'll need to learn how, and thankfully I can show my children a few things along the way. Some things they will be able to learn with me, and not have to wait until they grow up to learn.

I hope that there is something that you can take away from this post, and I hope that you remain humble and teachable. I know that I'll have to, or these things will take me forever!

I think that the main reason people say "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is because of the mindset of the dog. If we want to, we can learn all sorts of things no matter how old we get, and there is no reason not to.

As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:

proof-i-am-learning

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Until next time…

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