Sowing the Wind

I admit it! I'm a weather junkie. I follow reports on the weather carefully and check the Weather Channel often to see what is going on in different parts of the country and the world. For many years, I was in a business directly impacted by the weather. As you can imagine, it wasn't a random activity for me to want to know what tomorrow's weather would bring—and old habits are hard to break.

Hurricane season in the northern hemisphere typically peaks in August and September each year. Most years, right on schedule, you can see storms lining up one after another as they begin to threaten coastal areas. Weather services and state and local governments advise caution as people check their plans and consider their evacuation routes in case the storm of the hour bears down on them with great fury. We have seen the destruction and chaos a major storm can wreak over wide areas. But, while we watch these developments with heightened interest, life for most people goes on without interruption.

As this nation—and much of the world—struggles to overcome the trials and tests brought on by wars, economic troubles, and the pandemic, the lessons and principles learned in weather watching are often overlooked in other areas of life. For example, when meteorologists observe certain conditions and patterns, such as temperatures, high and low-pressure systems, wind speeds, and moisture movements, they know with certainty that a storm is developing and what the results can be.

Yet, obvious economic patterns and actions of government as well as the private sector, which have been shown to be precursors to economic collapse and hardship, are often ignored. The lessons of one generation are often overlooked by the next. Pernicious patterns of behavior on the part of individuals and government entities are repeated continually without thought for the consequences. The benefits of self-discipline and frugality that define great nations are abandoned in the hedonistic rush for self-indulgence and instant gratification at all costs. Potential health crises loom, while public awareness and preparedness often lag far behind the event of the outbreak.

Such is the time we live in today. It is plain that our actions, individually and collectively, determine the quality of our lives, economically and otherwise.

Whatever one's circumstance in life is now is a result of seeds sown at an earlier time. If a person wants a different "crop" in the future, then different seeds in the form of their life's decisions must be sown now. We do not have to "sow the wind" with disastrous consequences. We can and should sow proper seeds by putting into practice a better way of life, considering the long term results of today’s actions. By doing this, we will not reap the whirlwind with disastrous consequences, but the blessings that we desire, in this life and the life to come.