A New Lens
Last week, I attended National Convention for the fourth year running. Since my very first visit, I have always been energized by the experience, met plenty of truly amazing people, and left feeling excited about the year ahead. The same could be said about many FFA conferences and journeys, but this year, my National Convention was different.
It’s not just the fact that the host city had switched from Louisville, KY, to Indianapolis, IN. It’s more than having to travel with people other than my home chapter for the first time. Think about putting on glasses for the first time when waking up in the morning. Vision is a bit blurred before seeing through the lens of the glasses, but becomes much clearer once they are on. I realized this year that for the first time in a long time, I was seeing my Convention experience, and my FFA journey, through a new lens.
Many people, myself included, have attended convention to compete after a hard-earned win at the state level. It takes hours of hard work and practice to make it to that caliber of competition, and that effort is commendable. Others attend simply for the pleasure of going and enriching our leadership. It is easy to get caught up in the moment when we feel accomplished. While the plaques and hardware proudly represent our work paying off, and the photos help capture our memories of our adventures and growth, it is most often the intangible things that are most rewarding to our experience.
Our time as members in the FFA is fleeting. The window of our lives that we are actively involved as members is a relatively small one, even if we begin in seventh grade and reach into our collegiate years. While the physical reminders of our successes and memories will still exist, we will move on with our lives. Trophies will collect dust and photos will fade. It is the friendships we build and the legacies that we create that will last lifetimes, cross borders, and bridge generations.
Perhaps our CDE team moved on to compete at Nationals this year, and we brought home a plaque to represent our hard work. Maybe we were deeply inspired and motivated by the service opportunities and speakers at Convention. It is amazing how one week can contain so much. But, what will we do to continue this trend and feeling of elation? There are plenty of opportunities to give of our talent and time to make these experiences possible for others. Though our eligibility for CDEs may be over, we can help to train and prepare next year’s team for success. After hearing the motivational stories of others, we can put in the effort and work to promote change within our own communities back home. We can gather support and volunteer at our chapter’s fundraiser to help deserving members have the opportunities that we did.
Though we will someday hang up the blue jacket, remember that there is another putting it on for the first time. Let us perform at our greatest during our experiences, and then look through a new lens and see what we can build for others.