Having an optimistic nature is a requirement for a person to even consider agriculture as a profession. The ups and downs of agriculture that are regularly served up courtesy of the weather, the markets, equipment breakdowns, and the occasional “stuff happens” are what we grow to accept as a part of the business.
When nearly all the challenges of agriculture align with a severely negative bias, and that negativity continues for a much longer duration than grandpa can remember, our emotional foundations start to weaken. For some, it is foreign territory and they become emotionally disoriented to the extent that they fail to function within their own established range of normalcy. The talkative ones go dormant, and the more reserved become even more distant. We see frustration where we used to see logic, and the visionary struggles to just get through today.