On Resolutions

  In 2013 I resolve to be . . . myself. I resolve to be my best self. I have always liked the quote by Marianne Williamson about people being afraid of their best selves. You can read the entire quote here.
  I have been thinking about my infertility a lot lately. I finally had to come to the conclusion that my life is not supposed to be centered around motherhood. It should be centered around the other aspects of my life. I am going to focus on being a wife, being a sister, being a daughter, being a neighbor, being a ward member, being a teacher, and being a friend. I know many people who have become bitter about the blessings that life didn’t give them. Therefore, my first new years resolution is to magnify the blessings that I have been given by being my best self. Hopefully I will discover new talents, make new friends, and  positively affect my little piece of the world. 
  I have also spent a lot of time pondering President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s October 2012 General Conference talk Of Regrets and Resolutions.  The entire text is wonderful but my favorite portion is under the subtitle “I Wish I Had Let Myself Be Happier.” He says,

Sometimes in life we become so focused on the finish line that we fail to find joy in the journey. I don’t go cycling with my wife because I’m excited about finishing. I go because the experience of being with her is sweet and enjoyable.
Doesn’t it seem foolish to spoil sweet and joyful experiences because we are constantly anticipating the moment when they will end?

[…]
We shouldn’t wait to be happy until we reach some future point, only to discover that happiness was already available—all the time! Life is not meant to be appreciated only in retrospect. “This is the day which the Lord hath made … ,” the Psalmist wrote. “Rejoice and be glad in it.”

  I adopted this motto back in October. It made crummy days not so crummy and I was able to enjoy the Christmas season because I made a point of not rushing through December in an attempt to get to the 25th as fast as possible. So far, it seems like a pretty good resolution to continue into the new year.
  So my resolutions for 2013 are to find joy in the journey of my life, to appreciate each day, and to learn something new about myself. Wish me luck!

Life IS Fair

I've had some thoughts floating around unorganized in my mind for a few weeks. I would like to try to express them now since there were several talks at General Conference that seemed to support my budding ideas.
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I am tired of the phrase "life is not fair". People say this to me ALL THE TIME. It is their answer to that often asked question “Why me?”. Lately I have watched several of my friends go through trials of their own. My first instinct was to tell them that life is not fair. I was sure that this would immediately solve all their problems. But it hasn’t solved mine, and I know it won’t solve theirs either.

Here is my own personal opinion. Life is perfectly fair. We may not get what we want, but not getting our own way is not the same thing as being “not fair”. Plus, Fate doesn't discriminate and only give problems to some people. Every single person on earth has problems in their life. Please email me immediately if you haven’t suffered from at least one of the following afflictions: stress, not enough money, a disability, divorce, miscarriage, infertility, job loss, death of a family member, sickness, depression, abuse, addiction, loneliness, heartbreak or troublesome family member. I am sure that at some point in our lives we all ask the question, “Why me?”.

Do you know what would be really unfair? If someone managed to get all the way through life without suffering any of these sad things-that would be unfair. Imagine going through life never attending a funeral? (It won't happen). Imagine never catching a flu bug, or disagreeing with a sibling, worrying about a loved one, or having to look for a new job?

Luckily, we are each only given the trials that we are strong enough to handle. Christ’s atonement has covered all of our heartbreaks; He suffered our pains in the Garden of Gethsemane and He knows. He knows that in our own way we will each have to suffer, but one’s suffering is not looked upon as greater or lesser than someone else’s. To Him, it is the same. And so it must be for us as well. We can not look at others and wonder why they are so much luckier than we are because we don’t know what they suffer or how it hurts them. Only Christ can know their hearts.

During the General Conference of the LDS church this weekend, at least half the speakers seemed to comment on this topic. Here are links to two of them which are my personal favorites:

President Henry B. Eyring

Elder Ronald A. Rasband

So here is my challenge to myself. I am going to try to stop asking that “Why me?” question. I have a lot of good things going for me (good family, good husband, good job)-it wouldn't be fair to not have a few problems too.

There is a poem that I use during my poetry unit every year that comes to mind. So, to close with a quote from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Rainy Day:

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;

Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;

thy fate is the common fate of all,

Into each life some rain must fall,

Some days must be dark and dreary.

Learning Life Lessons

I learned a lesson tonight. Maybe it was on attitude.  I’m not exactly sure.
Today was “one of those days.” You know the kind I’m talking about? The kind of day where nothing truly bad happens but where it could have, maybe even should have, gone a whole lot better?
My lesson plans were fine – but not great. By the 6th time I taught homophones/homonyms I was more than happy to be done with them. The Pep Club had discipline issues, I have paper work galore, I had to help set up for a faculty meeting tomorrow morning, my keys to everything are missing, there’s a field trip tomorrow, . . . etc. etc.
When I got home I changed into pajama pants and went downstairs to watch a recording of Castle, NCIS, and NCIS:LA. I was going to have a nice, relaxing night of television and think about nothing.  Unfortunately NCIS:LA is a rerun tonight – disappointing— and I was still feeling grumpy when I turned off the television. (Strange, usually watching shows about murders relaxes me.) I decided to go to bed early, maybe curl up with a book, and call it a day. Good Riddance.
Sammy had different plans. He was barking at the back door- his sign to go out- so I opened the door. But when he was done with his business he wouldn’t come back in. He stayed on the porch, backing up every time I acted like I was moving towards him. Eventually he had me standing out on the edge of the back porch, and despite my Eeyore mood I couldn’t help but notice the sunset. Before I knew it I was following him out into the backyard and we began to play.
Sammy’s favorite game is tag. He loves to chase and he loves to be chased. I couldn’t help but laugh as he ran this-a-way and then that-a-way narrowly escaping my grasp with his tongue hanging out and grinning like a fool. He’s lightening fast and can change directions on a dime, so I know that every time I “almost” caught him it was because he allowed it. There’s no way he would ever let me get that close if he didn’t like the thrill of almost letting me win. He likes to hide behind the trees too and then waits to run until I sneak up on him. Sometimes we just run tight circles and figure eights around the trees as he weaves back and forth.
Do you know exercise, laughter, and a beautiful evening do to a bad mood? They shatter it to smithereens.  It is not possible to be in a bad mood and be having fun. 
So what did I learn? I learned that next time I feel that maybe life is getting out of hand, or at least not going my way I need to do something completely random. I need to play a game of tag with the dog, or go for a walk, or find a sunset. I happen to be one of those people who believe in signs from God. No I’m not saying that God spoke to me through my dog or the sunset. But I believe that He does put good, beautiful, innocent things in our lives everyday so that if we so choose, they’ll be there when we need something to help us out.  Tonight when I needed cheering up I found that I have many things to be cheerful about. And so now when I go to bed early, curl up with a book, and call it a night I won’t be doing because I’m cranky, I’ll be doing it lighthearted and refreshed, grateful for the opportunity to have a nice relaxing evening at home.

Learning Patience

I’ve decided that patience is about learning how to wait. It’s about how to make the most of the time that we are given, no matter what circumstances we may find ourselves in.
Tonight I had the “opportunity” to spend the evening with several different gentlemen from India. We met via a 1-800 service number and we were working toward the common goal of fixing Jacob’s laptop.  It had been a pleasant hour and a half with Abdul (not even kidding) in which he asked me questions, I answered them, he repeated them back incorrectly, I annunciated better, and then it started all over again. I spent a lot of time sitting in front of a laptop that didn’t work, waiting for directions and advice.  After running through all of the usual technical support questions, I was finally transferred to another friendly individual who was explaining to me how to go about mailing the laptop off to be fixed.  I started to hear a strange beeping sound that kept interrupting him. At first I didn’t think anything of it, and then in hit me! My phone battery was dying! Oh no! Where is my charger?! Oh yeah, its in my classroom -- 3 blocks away! The next thing I knew I had been disconnected.
Panicked, I ran to the garage and plugged my phone into the car charger. I knew that it was futile, but I couldn’t help hoping. I opened the garage door about a foot, and propped the back yard door open with a gas can to avoid fumigating myself, and then I waited. I waited for someone in India to pick up the phone again. I waited for the new young man to look up my case number and transfer me to the right department. I waited for someone in Hardware Support to accept my call. I tried patiently to re-explain everything that I had just spent the last hour explaining to someone else. I waited, and I waited, and I waited. The issue still isn’t resolved completely – he’s calling back tomorrow to finish – but as I sat shivering outside in my garage I began to think about my time.
I had made plans for this evening. It was going to be a fun evening with a Monday Movie, popcorn, etc, but instead I was stuck in my garage, listening to “hold” music on speakerphone (my car charger cord is too short to reach from the plug to my ear), and staring at the lawn mower (more on that at a later date). Is that what I wanted to do with my time this evening? Nope. It sure wasn’t. Was there anything I could do about it? Nope. There sure was not.
Now, it’s past 10:00pm. I still haven’t eaten dinner, I haven’t watched any television, read any books, played any games with Sammy, or even fixed the *bleeping* laptop, but its time for bed and I’ve learned a few lessons tonight. Lesson #1: Never call for technical support with 50% cell phone battery life, it won’t be enough. Lesson #2: Learn to speak Hindi, that may save a lot of time and make lesson #1 unnecessary. Lesson #3: Always keep a spare library book in the car for such emergencies. Lesson #4: Stop trying to control how you spend your time, the sooner you learn to give up control, the happier you’ll be (or at least the less frustrated).