FFA Corner: Choose to share your joy

Running for a state FFA office is one of the most exciting and most terrifying moments for an FFA member. It’s comparable to an intense interview for a dream job or even attempting to close a sale with a substantial account.

It’s significant. It’s something we’ve often wanted for years and we work incredibly hard to even get to the point of candidacy. It’s exciting because we might get to serve our fellow members for a year.

It’s terrifying because, to put it frankly, we might face public rejection. Isn’t that why so many of us, myself included, often choose to watch life from the sidelines instead of risking a fall?

While I was in Oklahoma in April for their State FFA Convention, I had the privilege of spending time with the state officer candidates as they prepared for their final speeches to the delegates and then waited for the intense moment when the names of the new officer team were announced at the end of the final session.

The candidates reminded me of the power in taking a risk, but that wasn’t all. They also illustrated what I’m convinced is the most noble response to either result: election or the loss of a dream.

On the first day, after a breakfast where nerves were too high to eat much of the food, the candidates and I talked about Teddy Roosevelt’s “Man in the Arena” speech, remembering that “it is not the critic who counts, but the man who is actually in the arena.”

The most profound line of that great American oration, in my eyes, is the result for the one who chooses to be in the arena: he “at the best in the end knows the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Those Oklahoma state officer candidates dared greatly. They stood up in front of several thousand of their peers and announced they sought a leadership position that they knew might not ultimately be theirs to hold.

It’s one thing to fail in private. It’s another thing entirely to fail in front of a crowd.

Yet, a failure to be elected in the race for state FFA office is not a failure in the race of life and leadership. I watched the candidates stand up together, arms around each others’ shoulders, as the suspenseful election music began to fill the convention hall and my own election memories flooded back to me.

I scanned their faces, full of hope and anticipation, many with tears already streaming down their cheeks. I’ve been there, too.

In Oklahoma, there are three finalist candidates for each office and I watched each group of three intently. As one name was called, the new officer would race to the stage and was welcomed by their new teammates and the retiring officer. I could feel their excitement. I’ve been fortunate to hear my name called from the stage.

Yet I didn’t keep my eyes on them for long because of the two candidates left in the seats. Their emotions were raw and immediate. The crazy thing is that their first instinctual reaction wasn’t of sadness. It was joy for their peer who just got elected.

That joy on their faces then morphed into the difficult and painful realization of the fact that their friend’s election meant their loss, but that was the secondary emotion. I empathized with those left behind. I’ve been there before, too.

That final session wasn’t just cathartic. I left the convention hall with a renewed resolve to be the kind of leader who chooses to risk failure, even in a public way, because of how meaningful it is simply to strive for something higher.

Above all, I walked away determined to be not only the one in the arena, but also the one who cheers for others in the arena, too, regardless of who emerges as the victor.

In the end, we get to choose whether we reserve our joy only for ourselves or whether we choose to give it generously to others. I hope that you and I will be like my friends in Oklahoma who chose to share their joy.

Miriam Hoffman of Earlville, Illinois, is the National FFA eastern region vice president. She is an agribusiness economics major at Southern Illinois University.