Make Hay When The Sun Shines?

It is no secret that we in rural neighborhoods watch what goes on around us, especially farmers. I see the hay field to the east of our house and watch when it is cut and baled. This week I watched that newly cut hay get rained on several times.

Indiana received a lot of rain recently. We are on the edge of it, fortunate to get enough but not the bad weather. The day after the rain "ended," everyone was cutting hay in our neighborhood. The field to our east was no different.

I, on the other hand, looked at the forecast and did not cut our hay.

Yesterday we had one of those pop-up showers that dumped a quarter-inch of rain on our area. As that rain fell, I felt a bit of satisfaction that our hay was still growing, waiting to be cut.

This morning, as I enjoyed my coffee on the patio, I thought about that decision and wondered if my satisfaction was simply confirmation bias. Had I really made the best decision by not cutting, or would I be telling myself a different story right now if that pop-up shower had missed us entirely and my neighbor's gamble had paid off instead?

That is the trouble with confirmation bias. It does not wait around for good reasoning. It waits for the outcome, and then it hands you whatever story makes you look smart.

I did a podcast interview last night and challenged my guest on the difference between caution and complacency. Sitting here with coffee in hand, watching the rain and dew burn off, I feel vindicated that I did not cut hay. But I am asking myself the same question I asked my guest. This might be a bad example, but how do we guard against crossing the fine line between caution and complacency, aggressiveness and irresponsible exuberance, when the only evidence we have for which side we were on is how the dice happened to land?

On this Friday morning, his hay is cut, mine isn't. His hay got wet, mine didn't. In both cases, no hay is in a barn yet.