Tony Robbins meets Hesiod in this generous and sincere guide to living the good life.
In Works and Days, one of our oldest surviving complete works of literature, Hesiod, the ancient Greek poet to whom the work is commonly attributed, combined agricultural knowledge with general advice on living well. Nearly three millennia on, the confined but strong literary tradition that Works and Days spawned continues with Mike C. Young’s The Farmer’s Code. In it, autobiography, business advice, life coaching and spirituality are all distilled into one effective package.
Five generations is how long the author’s agricultural family business has been going strong for, growing from a one-man affair (Young’s great-grandfather) to a multi-million dollar company. The book recounts lessons from the world of agriculture and draws connections to life lessons, obvious as well as not, with the goal being not simply an abstract notion of “success,” but the building of a legacy, a concept which is heavily explored.
Just like pruning a tree, we sometimes have to make the difficult decision of cutting something or someone out of our life. Just like farmers maintain their machinery, we have to maintain our mind and resources in good order. Similarly, crop monitoring, proper irrigation, replenishment of the soil, and so on, all find their parallel in our normal lives. A variation of the mantra is repeated at the end of every chapter: we are to live the farmer’s code.
Along the way we are privy to glimpses of the author’s personal journey, particularly toward embracing Christianity, which lends its ideas as well as its language to his message. Quotes from the Bible and references to Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all employed in support of Young’s well-meaning project of helping people build a positive legacy. Love and forgiveness are preached, as well they always should be.
The most special moments come in the form of Young’s praise for women. In the first instance, it is about his grandmother who never complained about the bad lot she was handed early in life, of which the grandson only got to learn while writing this book. In the second, it is new mothers, the exemplary “servant leaders” who put others’ needs before their own.
If it wasn’t already made evident by the ease of the writing, Young’s references make it completely clear that he is a student of the category of books this volume broadly belongs to. But where many of those self-help books are cynical and deprived of good intentions, The Farmer’s Code is evidently springing from a place of charity.
Probably Young’s only bit of questionable advice—at least in the way it is expressed—is his urging to cut out critics from one’s life and to keep only supporters. It is a false dichotomy, as criticism is often a manifestation of support, and the most valuable supporters are usually the most honest critics and the ones who challenge us.
The Farmer’s Code continually challenges its reader to make a better world, which, despite any critics, should grant it more than a few supporters. In the end, this is a caring & thoughtful self-help book with its heart in helping you cultivate life’s crops for years to come.
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