In the early 1900s, before the age of superhighways, supermarkets, and the giant food manufacturers, things were very different, better in many ways. Small family farmers used to truck or cart each season\u2019s harvest to a small centralized buyers\u2019 market that had been set up in their area. Some farmers, more isolated than others, had to travel great distances just to sell their crops. For these hardy people who lived and worked the small outlying farms, this was about the only time they would see any other people outside of their own families. Everyone looked forward to going to these great open markets. There were crafts to exchange and store-bought goods to buy, the newest catalogs to see, and the warmth of at least a thousand hellos. All of this, plus the hard-earned financial rewards that came with the close of another season, made the marketing of their harvest an exciting, happy time for everyone involved.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why, as he stood there taking the whole festival feeling in, the old farmer couldn\u2019t understand why anyone should be standing around looking tired and distressed. But sure enough, leaning up against the side of one of the large tented areas stood a very unhappy young farmer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat could possibly be this boy\u2019s problem?\u201d the old man wondered to himself. The recent weather had been more than kind, and every farmer at the market, including this young man, had brought in a bumper crop. He thought about it for a moment and decided to do the neighborly thing. He walked over to the young man.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything I can help you with?\u201d he asked, as gently as he knew how. When he got no response, he tried another approach. \u201cHope you don\u2019t mind me asking. It\u2019s just that you look like maybe you could use a helping hand.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young farmer looked up at his elder without raising his head. \u201cThanks, but there\u2019s nothing you can do to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you know?\u201d the old man asked.<\/p>\n
A long moment passed, then the young farmer spoke. \u201cYou don\u2019t understand,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s that dumb tractor of mine. Dang thing is more trouble than it\u2019s worth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh? And what\u2019s wrong with it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t really know. It\u2019s harder to use some days than others. The dumb thing just tuckers me out sometimes to where me and my family don\u2019t want to farm anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
Something wasn\u2019t adding up in the mind of the old farmer as he listened to the young man speak. \u201cHarder to use, you say? Maybe I could take a look at it sometime. I\u2019m pretty fair with these new contraptions.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSure,\u201d the young man\u2019s eyes brightened momentarily, \u201cbut I don\u2019t think there\u2019s much you can do. We\u2019d be pleased to have you come by anyway, and we\u2019ll fix you a nice supper for your trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
So they exchanged directions.<\/p>\n
A few short weeks later, after half a day\u2019s travel, the old farmer rolled his horse-drawn, tool-laden cart onto the young man\u2019s farmland. Straight ahead of him in a distant field he could see the young farmer and his wife, along with their two sons. They were struggling to push a small tractor along the raised crop beds.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello!\u201d the old man cried out as his cart drew into hearing range. \u201cShe\u2019s still not running right, I see.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young farmer smiled back at him and said, \u201cWhat do you mean? It\u2019s going pretty good today!\u201d<\/p>\n
The old farmer sat there, shocked, for a moment. It just couldn\u2019t be. He knew he had to ask the next question, but he had a hard time getting the words out.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you mean to tell me,\u201d the old man tried to find the right pitch, \u201cthat you always push this tractor to make it work?\u201d<\/p>\n
The young man looked back at him as though a little irritated with such a stupid question. \u201cWell, how else do you get it to do what you want?\u201d<\/p>\n
Realizing everything all at once about the young man\u2019s deep weariness and defeated appearance earlier on at the farmers\u2019 market, the old farmer said as calmly as he knew how, \u201cMy son, a tractor is something you are meant to ride on, not push!\u201d<\/p>\n
It took quite a bit of explaining, several trips to town, and a lot of greasy work, but by the time the old man finally said farewell to the young man and his family, the small tractor was up and running in high gear. And so was everyone\u2019s spirit. At last, everything was as it was intended to be. Life was good.<\/p>\n
I realize, as I am sure you do, that such a story probably never did or ever could happen. However, this tale of the misunderstood tractor contains a highly valuable lesson for anyone who is genuinely tired of pushing against life. Let\u2019s look at this lesson and see what it teaches us about our everyday experience: stress exists because we insist! It\u2019s really that simple. It is our mistaken belief that we must push life in the direction we choose that keeps us in a strained and unhappy relationship with it. Our wish to have power over life comes from this wrong relationship with life. Reality has its own effortless course, and we can either embrace its way or struggle endlessly with our own. We do not need power to flow. In other words, why push when we can learn to ride?<\/p>\n
With a new kind of effort, we can climb aboard an entirely new kind of life that always has fair skies and the wind at its back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the early 1900s, before the age of superhighways, supermarkets, and the giant food manufacturers, things were very different, better in many ways. Small family farmers used to truck or cart each season\u2019s harvest to a small centralized buyers\u2019 market that had been set up in their area. Some farmers, more isolated than others, had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499,516],"tags":[1312,44,1314,28,488],"class_list":["post-1845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthy-living","category-stress-2","tag-de-stress-now","tag-letting-go-2","tag-story","tag-stress","tag-tension"],"yoast_head":"\n