Different is Not Deficent
Hey friends! If you know me very well, then you know that I’m pursuing a secondary major in the Staley School of Leadership Studies at K-State entitled “Global Food Systems Leadership”. And if you know me REALLY well, you know that I can’t speak highly enough of this program. In a course I am currently enrolled in within this program, I am constantly challenged to break surface level, fact based learning and dive into deep thinking and learning as we discuss hot topics such as food security, sustainability in agriculture, and food systems as a whole. Throughout all of these topics of discussion, there is consistently one lesson that always comes to mind anytime a new topic is introduced. This concept is…
“Different is not deficient”.
Read that again.
In the course we discuss different agricultural techniques and practices. Different practices work better for different farmers. A farmer in Uganda is not going to have access to the same technology as a farmer in Kansas, but that doesn’t mean the farmer in Uganda’s work is deficient. Each farmer is respectively doing what works best for them economically, climate wise, and socially.
This concept applies to people too. Everyone is different. Everyone makes different decisions, have different interests, and have different priorities. But who’s to say one is better than the other? Different is not deficient. There’s two parts to this concept. The first is that being different means you’ve dared to be you, and if you read my last blog you know how significant I feel it is to be YOU. As long as you do what you feel is the right thing and you’re doing it to the best of your ability, who’s to say that your choices and actions are deficient or the “wrong thing”?
The second part of this concept is acceptance. There are going to be people who think differently than you, look different than you, or chose different pathways than you, but that doesn’t make them any lesser. As humans we owe it to ourselves to accept our differences and embrace our diversity among each other through acts of inclusion.
So Kansas FFA, be you, and accept others who are not exactly like you, because different is not deficient.
Living to serve,
Hattie Polson