Temperance, charity, diligence, humility, kindness, and patience—these are some of the heavenly virtues we should strive to master in our lives. Let the monks and priests silently master them on faraway mountains, but for us, the weary air traveler, we'll earn our stripes at the airport and 37,000 feet in the air.
To achieve this, we must first ensure we are in the proper headspace. A good way to do this is by keeping stress levels low because a less stressful you means more room to practice these virtues with others around you. A simple way to reduce stress at the airport is to sign up for TSA PreCheck, making the security process a breeze. If you fly more than 10 times a year through busy airports, consider purchasing a CLEAR membership to make security a complete afterthought. With CLEAR, you go to their kiosk, show your boarding pass, and they take you to the front of the security line. If you already have TSA PreCheck, having CLEAR means you will jump to the front of the precheck line. Pairing CLEAR and TSA PreCheck is the most efficient way I’ve found to get through security. If you're a globetrotter, consider Global Entry to bypass customs when returning to the U.S.
Going through TSA is a great opportunity to practice humility. It's the TSA agent’s world; let them run it. Approach when they call on you, follow directions, and thank them once you are on the other side of the metal detector. TSA is a thankless gig. It might make their day, it might not. You can't control their reaction, only your actions. Finally, put away your bin if you used one going through security; it’s the equivalent of putting away your grocery cart (or buggy for my southerners) after grocery shopping.
Now that you are at your gate, use the time saved through security to be diligent in your work as you wait for your plane to board. Be a pro. Also, use this opportunity to practice kindness by not taking calls/zoom meetings in crowded areas. I’m sure it’s important to you, but if you really need to be on that call, please go to an isolated area and use headphones. No one around you is excited to hear about your dinner meeting in Dallas or how your colleague’s wife and kids are doing.
When they're starting to board the plane, don't bum rush the line like a cattle call. I’m looking at you, group 7 out of 8. Practice patience. Once in your seat, say you see a young couple wearing pajamas on the flight. It’s 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon. You’re a clothes snob like me and see dressing well as an act of respect for others around you. Let’s pull back here and practice charity with a mental technique I learned from a book called The Charisma Myth: How Anyone Can Master the Art and Science of Personal Magnetism by Olivia Fox Cabane. In her book Cabane introduces a technique called rewriting reality. For example, instead of gritting your teeth and telling yourself society is doomed, tell yourself that the pajama couple are generous volunteers testing out pajamas made by orphans from Uganda. They are traveling back to Uganda to hand-deliver a million-dollar check to the orphans and have been asked to wear pajamas to bring awareness to the cause. Crazy right? Telling yourself this will lighten your mood and make you more empathetic to those around you. Read the book if you don't buy it. Rewriting reality will make you feel better about the situation. Science.
Rewrite reality again during the flight when the pajama passengers in front of you squash your legs when they throw their seat back. Tell yourself they must have just had back surgery and need to stretch. You are the hero they needed. Suppose the same pajama passengers jump up when you land and try to rush to the front of the plane, women, children, blind dogs be damned. Tell yourself that they must be in a rush to get that check to the orphans in Uganda or the orphanage will close. They’re doing great things.
These are a few simple ways to practice building virtue at the airport and 37,000 feet in the air. Air travel is an opportunity for us to give in to our lesser selves, as things can easily go wrong and compound. But you read Hill Country Affair. You aspire to acknowledge and dismiss those base instincts and see air travel as an amazing opportunity to become a more virtuous person.
Writer's block is like a ball of barbed wire sitting in your chest. If you make a slight move in any direction, the ball tears into your flesh, and you retreat back to that static position, staring at the blank screen or empty piece of paper. You’re stuck. I can’t say I’ve conquered writer's block or even learned to live with it. It currently has my number, given that I’ve only written a handful of blog posts since the summer. I’ve just been sitting around, waiting for the muse to show up and take away the inconvenience of having to do the work. However, listening to Steven Pressfield’s book “Turning Pro” gave me a different insight on how to combat writer's block and the writing process in general. You see, I’ve been acting like an amateur, and I want to turn pro.
Pressfield wrote some of my favorite books that I’ve re-read multiple times, including “The Afghan Campaign” and “Gates of Fire.” I highly recommend them to anyone. However, in “Turning Pro,” Pressfield tackles the self-help/improvement genre and shares practical advice through his own experience turning from an amateur to a pro and the experience of other “professionals” he knows as well. The book is short and no-nonsense. Pressfield spends most of the time in the book comparing differences in habits and actions between professionals and amateurs. It’s not profession-specific. You can be a plumber in Kansas City, a CEO at an accounting firm in L.A., or a painter in Brooklyn everything he says translates to what you do for a living or what you do as a hobby. Yes, you can, and should, go pro in your hobbies as well.
There are so many good takeaways from the book, but one of the biggest is the importance of just showing up. You see, I was of the mind and mystified by writers who put out op-eds every week. How do they find the motivation? How do they find the inspiration? They don’t. They show up and work like any other job. You don’t sit down and start cranking out “War and Peace” with every angle and plot point already developed. It’s a process. And the first step is doing whatever you want to go pro at consistently. You don’t know what to write; who cares? Sit down and start hitting the keyboard. Pick up the pen. Write nonsense. Keep writing. The important thing is to show up. No matter how void you are of inspiration, it's imperative that you just show up. Bad days are expected, but bad effort, or no effort, is unacceptable for the pro.
Amateurs wait for motivation or the muse to fill them. Once amateurs “feel” it, they act. When the feeling eventually leaves, they go back to that static position. They hope and pray for the next injection of motivation from the muse. The amateur sits there and lets everything pass them. They’ll only move for the perfect idea to avoid that ball of barbed wire tearing into them. Pros don’t have that luxury.
Professionals know that to reach a certain level of success in their given field, they have to get a proper amount of repetitions in. That means showing up consistently. The professional understands that every time they open the laptop or pick up the pen, gold doesn't flow out. If they show up and give a good effort but the product falls short of expectations, that’s fine. They know they will come back tomorrow and refine it or start over. The professional knows the price must be paid, the work must be done. When they are tired, when they are angry, the work must be done. If it so happens to be a day when the ideas flow seamlessly and the muse arrives with a full basket, that’s great. The professional enjoys it for what it is, an exception, not the rule. With all of that said, I only have one question for you: are you a professional or an amateur?
The ancient Roman politician and orator Cicero said of farming, “For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing is more pleasing, nothing is more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture.”
The quote reminds me of this rather new term I came across a year ago called the “gentleman farmer.” The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a gentleman farmer as “a man who farms mainly for pleasure rather than for profit.” But I would extend the definition to include men like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Both held vast amounts of land and relied on their estates for income. However, they were not exclusively farmers and pursued lives of public service and held many other interests and hobbies besides their farms.
I'd like to think I can enter this realm and crown myself amongst the ranks of gentleman farmers. I'm building it out slowly. I bought three chickens almost six months ago and have kept them alive and have only chased one opossum out of their coop, praise God. My wife has her horses and we have successfully grown vegetables and herbs in our small backyard garden. As we begin to build our new house on a decent plot of land my brain will continue to dream up what livestock to bring in next. Where to plant the gardens, the fruit trees, a new horse arena too maybe? I'm not sure.
But I am sure as to why I love hobby farming as a gentleman farmer. Work is important but it's not supposed to be a passion. Those who are passionate about what they do for work are few and far between. And that's normal. That said, my work is important to me but it puts me in offices and in front of a computer for a large chunk of my day. I'm not passionate about that much time infant of a screen and I know I need to balance that out with exercise and fresh air. If I can get fresh eggs, pork, vegetables from tending to animals before and after work, and building gardens, that's great. Learning animal husbandry and gardening are skills that I'd like to pass along to my kids rather than how to crank out a spreadsheet or organize a Zoom call. Plus think of all the English countryside style clothes I'll start to collect as my hobby farm grows. Win win.
