New Year, Better Me

Welcome to the New Year! New Years is my favorite holiday because it comes with a full year of new possibilities. We’ve all heard saying, “new year, new me” right? Well that’s only partly true when you think about it. There’s a saying, “Don’t reinvent the wheel”. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel; it’s been around for ages! But the saying does mean that you don’t have to start from scratch every time you do something. I think that applies to the New Year too. Could you imagine what would happen if we started from square one every New Year? That would be disastrous! So here is my ideal; what if instead of “new year, new me” we said “new year, better me”? Here are some friends know truly know what it means to be a “better me”.

Picture this; I am wearing official dress, high heels included, and I am running late for a meeting that I am chairing that was suppose to start 15 minutes ago. Yikes… Here’s the problem, the meeting is 4 blocks away from my house. I run into my room grab the stuff I need and prepare to sprint through the crowds of college students giving me funny looks for wearing hose and high heels on a run. Apparently I looked a little distressed because my lovely roommate, Keyanna, looked up from her homework and then saved the day. She asked, “Bailey, do you want a ride?” YES! Good news, I made it to the meeting and everything went smoothly after that. Keyanna was busy, and could have easily just let me run there like a crazy person. Instead, she went out of her way to help me. That’s pretty incredible if you ask me.

Next I would like to introduce you to Evan. I met Evan at the Agriculture Future of America conference in November. While there we became friends. On one of the last nights there was a dance and a food drive. The idea was at some point everyone went over and worked at the food drive. The group I was with went and helped at the food drive and then prepared to go to the dance. But Evan was still working. I went over and asked him if he was ready to go. He told me, “Not yet, I’ll be over to the dance in a little while.” So the rest of us went to the dance. 10 minutes passed, 30 minutes, one hour and still no Evan. I went back over to the food drive and found him he was still working. Finally after an hour and a half of serving he came over to the dance, but only for a short while before he was back at the food drive helping again. He worked from set up to tear down and did it out of the goodness of his heart, with no incentive other than to serve the community. I am still amazed by that selfless act of service.

Lastly, my teammates have hearts of service not only for Kansas FFA but also for everyone around them. This year being away from home on my birthday I wasn’t expecting much. But what I failed to take into account was my FFAamily. On the morning of my birthday I decided for some strange reason to get up early. I had just rolled out of bed slipped on my slippers and was walking down the hall. Keep in mind this is 7 o’clock in the morning and I had just rolled out of bed, hadn’t brushed my hair or my teeth. A girl came down the stairs and said hey Bailey there is a deliveryman for you and he needs your signature. Now looking back, I see this is very unlikely but at that time in the morning I didn’t question it. I swung open our front door and to my surprise, my team was there getting ready to kidnap me. They had prepared me a wonderful breakfast fit for champions. I had never expected this. They put so much into making me feel special. I am so thankful for friends with hearts to serve.

So as you are creating your New Year’s resolutions, take some time to think about how you can be better, not newer. How can you serve? How can you help others? How can you be a better you than ever before? “Living to serve”; it’’s part of our FFA motto. I can’t think of a better time to strive for greatness and service of others. One of my goals is to read an agriculture related article every day so I can better serve the agriculture industry as an advocate. What will your goal be? It’s time for New Year, Better Me!