Category: essay

Choosing majors and careers

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I think we can get caught up in trying to find jobs and careers and a life that is perfect for people. There is a myth that you should have a dream and work towards your dream and live happily ever after. That’s not how life works. People fail. Dreams crumble. The real world is messy and complicated.

I feel like a lot of people, maybe most people, simply land in their careers and their life instead of carefully picking everything out. I was supposed to be a writer, but now I’m looking at completely different opportunities and learning about economics and business (and mostly, I’m a full-time mom). My dad was supposed to be an engineer, and then he ended up in college administration. My husband was supposed to be a wildlife biologist, and he ended up in park management. My sister was supposed to be a filmmaker (she still might be), but right now she’s a store manager. I even knew of an anesthesiologist who became a UPS driver after developing allergies.

I think it matters me how hard you work in the opportunities you have than finding the perfect opportunities for you.

I’m currently getting another undergraduate degree in economics and I have rethought my choice quite a lot. Do I really want to do this? Does it fit me? But I don’t have to find the perfect path. Good enough is good enough. I’ve learned about Nobel-prize winning economists that have had strange pathways into their fields: One admitted he was lazy and unmotivated and people didn’t expect much of him. Another had an education in psychology. They didn’t really intend to go into economics and succeed; they just landed there. No one fits exactly into a field, and that’s okay.

Sometimes we follow paths that other people choose for us, like the kid who learned how to play the cello because his parents were both professional cellists. He was really good at it. Sometimes we find our pathway by chance: one person literally pulled a random folder out of a filing cabinet and decided that she would major in engineering because she couldn’t make a decision. She became a successful engineer.

There are going to be times when we are bored and unsatisfied, but the best thing to do is to keep working and trying even when things aren’t working out quite right. Try to help other people. Try to learn new things. Ask questions. Embrace your talents and apply them to whatever opportunities you have.

Don’t worry too much about what field you go into and if you’ve found the perfect job. Just be the best person you can be and things will work out.

Remembering Humility

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I love school, but I have to watch myself sometimes. I have always gotten good grades, but those grades are not reflective of my self-worth, my intelligence, how hard I work, or how much I know. I am not better than anyone because of my grades. They don’t really mean much at all.

Learning in school is good, but it’s not the only way to learn and discover truth. People who are not educated can be successful and intelligent. People who are highly educated can make mistakes and do stupid things.

Knowledge can be like a box of colorful beads. Some of these beads look shinier than others, and so we say that they are better. But it’s all knowledge. It’s all truth, and it doesn’t really matter what color the beads are.

I really want to keep learning in lots of different ways. Humility means that I always remember that I have more to learn and I can continually progress. There is so much to learn and do outside of school and outside of careers. The life I have at home with my children is the best learning experience I have ever had.

You may at times feel inadequate because you don’t meet someone else’s standards. But that doesn’t really matter. You are qualified and adequate, mostly because you are still learning.

There is so much knowledge out there. And we never really know much at all, no matter how educated we get.

Hypocrisy

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I was angry with my husband the other day. I really sort of wanted to be angry at him. It didn’t last long, because as I was talking, I realized I was being a complete hypocrite.

I was doing EXACTLY what I was mad at him for doing. I was holding grudges. I was not forgiving. I was picking fights. I was being distant and distracted. And I wanted to blame it on him, but it was totally and completely my fault.

In fact, when I think about it, I often try to blame my own faults on other people. Like thinking that no one invites me anywhere when I don’t invite anyone either. Or thinking that everyone else is cranky, which is a sure sign that I am the cranky one. Whenever I feel tired, it’s okay if I don’t do as much. But if someone else is tired, I get can sometimes get mad at them for being tired. It’s ridiculous.

But it doesn’t seem ridiculous in the moment. Only when I take a step back do I realize that I am being a hypocrite, and I am putting different expectations on others than I am on myself.

I think I hate the faults of others the most when they reflect my own faults. I don’t want to admit my own weakness and so it’s a lot easier to just push the blame elsewhere. But I do have a lot of faults. I’m selfish and proud and distracted and lazy. I stay inside my comfort zone too often and I expect too much from others.

So I’m going to try to be a little bit more humble and try to keep improving my own self instead of blaming the problems of my life on others. It’s hard. But it’s good too: if things are my fault, that means I can fix them.

Improving Bad Habits and Behaviors

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We all have many brain pathways that make life a lot easier, good habits that help us: brushing our teeth, eating meals, getting dressed, turning the lights off, cleaning up, holding our tongues, smiling and waving, and all of those sorts of things.

But we also have pathways that are not so positive, like checking our phones constantly, yelling, feeling down and depressed, or staying up late.

I have dealt with mood swings and feeling of depression for quite a lot of my life, and it’s really easy to fall back into that again. I’ll do really good for a while, only to have a bad day. Misery can become a habit.

And when bad habits and behaviors keep coming back again and again, it can be really frustrating. We rationally know that we want to stop doing that, but then we keep doing it anyway because it’s so easy.

Change can take a while. And sometimes we need to understand that in order for change to happen, we have to consciously steer our brains away from habitual behavior for quite a long time, longer than we really want to. Deciding that we want to change is not enough; we have to put in the effort to actually make that change happen.

For example, I really like to watch YouTube videos when I am bored or distressed. And it’s really easy just to click on the site and watch video after video. It can be really habitual, and it’s not something I like about myself. I have an app that blocks certain websites, and for a while I flat out blocked YouTube from my life.

I stopped thinking about it. I stopped doing it. It would seem like I conquered my bad habit. But when I re-enabled YouTube again, guess what happened? I started habitually watching videos again. So I blocked it again.

And I’m realized that the longer something has been around, sometimes the longer you have to work on getting rid of it. I don’t know if certain pathways ever really go away all the way–because if you did it once, it’s so much easier to do it again.

But the atonement of Jesus Christ can help strengthen us and become new people. Change can happen. For some people, it happens in an instant, but for most of us, it takes longer. The point is that we don’t give up, that we keep coming back to what we value, and we keep seeking hope and repentance and healing.

And then, maybe years and years later, we can look back and see that we are better and new, and it’s so much easier to do the right thing.

The World Changes: Forecasting & Fortune Telling

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I was having a conversation with my brother today, and he asked me something about the future, about what I think would happen.

I basically said that I had no idea, because the world changes. And sometimes we don’t even realize all the changes that are happening until we look back at them.

Forecasting is more like trying to be a fortune teller sometimes. It can be incredibly inaccurate because it rests on the premise that the future is going to be like the past. We assume that trends will continue and we project without being able to know the unexpected.

Things make sense when you are looking backward. Things sometimes don’t make sense at all when we are looking forward.

Population forecasts, stock forecasts, housing forecasts, weather forecasts, climate forecasts: they might be right, but they could also be very wrong. Things may change, things we don’t expect. Trends change.

So I’m optimistic, because I’m a lot happier that way, even if the forecasts seem like doom and gloom. The world might end tomorrow, but I really doubt it.

Experience and Bias

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I am a white female and I was raised in a religious and conservative town that has now grown to a large suburb with a lot of tech jobs. I have lived in northern Nevada and eastern Wyoming and quite a few places in Utah, and I have never left the United States. I can’t get away from my experience and where I came from, and I don’t want to, but that also comes with certain biases that I can’t get rid of. I have had a lot of privilege and opportunities in life, like scholarships and financial support and free housing. In some ways, my life has been really easy. In other ways, it’s been sort of difficult. My life is unique, and while I can try to understand others, I don’t really know what’s it like for them.

I don’t know what it is like for a lot of people out there. I can try to learn the best I can, but I don’t know what it’s like to be black or Mexican or be raised by a single parent. I don’t know what’s it’s like to be a refugee or what it’s like to be evicted from the only home I have. I don’t know what it’s like to have disability or to look different from other people. I also don’t know what it’s like to be rich.

I can’t get rid of the privilege and blessings I enjoy. I have a certain viewpoint from my experience, and it’s not necessarily right all the time.

I can say that I’m not racist or homophobic or prejudiced, but that’s not really true. I don’t want to be, but I can’t get away from my own experience. Sometimes I’m not sure what to say or do. Sometimes I think or say offensive things. I don’t mean to. I work on learning more about other people and other experiences, but I can’t ever fully understand. I can listen, though. I can learn a little bit more. I can keep working on it, but I’ll never be perfect.

Sometimes we view the world from our own viewpoint and not realize that we can only see one part of the picture in our own framework.

My DNA is very European. I come from ancestors who immigrated from places like England and Scotland and Germany and who came to the United States and settled here. They are basically are the winners of history in a way: they fought and they won. But that means there were losers too. I don’t know what parts of history were right or wrong; it just happened. And I can’t change what happened, even if it doesn’t always follow the same values people talk about today.

I’m not ever going to see the whole picture of life, but I don’t want to be the sort of person that thinks I’m right because I’m coming from my own experience. Sometimes I’m wrong. Sometimes I can’t understand why I’m wrong. But I’ll keep learning and working on it anyway.

Sometimes we think, because we are privileged and have certain opportunities, that all other people enjoy the same thing. But they don’t. Some people have it a lot harder than we do, and while we can easily judge them and determine how they should do better to fix their lives, usually we just don’t understand yet.

You can’t really understand unless you experience and live through something. So we don’t have to be competing against each other; we just have to help make room for each other and help each other out, and sometimes to ask how to do that when we don’t really know how. We can have empathy and compassion by trying to understand the best we can and realize that it will always fall a bit short.

 

Lying, Sneaking, and Obstruction of Justice: Children and Politicians

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I have some really great children that I love a lot. But they make mistakes. They are old enough to know when they haven’t done the right thing. But they are still learning, so their instinct is to hide.

They don’t like to tell me when something goes wrong. (I can tell by the screaming sometimes.) They sometimes give me the right answer instead of the one that is actually true. (“Did you brush your teeth?” “Yes.” “Your toothbrush is dry. Go brush your teeth.”)

Kids like to hide things like gum and candy wrappers. They will lie about what happened and say they didn’t do it when they really did. They don’t ask permission and they sneak and they hide. I think this is pretty normal for every kid out there. I know I did it.

But this behavior, while it seems childish, can continue on and on. We all are guilty of lying, sometimes more often than we think. We hide and sneak. We try to save face and appear better than we are.

I was thinking about how when politicians and powerful people get into trouble, I often hear the words “obstruction of justice.”  They are doing the same things as my children: hiding candy wrappers, telling falsehoods, and trying to appear like they are doing the right thing when they are not.

It’s hard to tell the truth. It’s really hard to admit when you make a mistake. It’s hard to always ask for permission. It’s hard to live with integrity, where you don’t have anything to hide.

I once broke a computer at work years ago. It was a huge mistake. And I had to tell them about it. So I did, even though I was a bit scared. But it turned out just fine. Everyone makes mistakes. It’s when you don’t admit the mistake that it really becomes a problem.

I know my husband, as a manager, would much rather his employees talk to him about the mistakes they make instead of just hoping it goes away. He’s had multiple employees damage vehicles without admitting any fault. They all get found out, and it would have been so much easier for them if they would have admitted what they did when they did it.

When we tell the truth and admit our mistakes, frankly and honestly, we feel better and we are able to move forward. We usually can’t hide things very well. They resurface and they come up. But if we just admit what we did was wrong, we apologize, and we work to make it right, we find ourselves happier, in control of our life, and more able to develop good relationships and help others.

People actually think higher of those who admit they are wrong. We try to hide our shame sometimes so people will like us, but in reality, the effects are the opposite. Vulnerability is a positive thing, not negative, and we would all do well to be more forthcoming about fixing our mistakes instead of hiding them.

Sometimes the most powerful people haven’t learned this lesson. I’m trying to teach my kids: telling the truth is so important. I am often much more supportive and gentle when my kids admit a mistake than when I find out on my own. When we want an increase of love, we do that by seeking help in confessing and fixing, not in hiding.

Praise

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I have never been praised for my singing voice, except for some mild positive comments. I view this as an entirely good thing.

You see, when we get praised for something, particularly when we are young, we may start to build up our self-imagine around that thing. It becomes part of who we are. But the thing is, we may not actually be particularly good at it in another setting. And we usually always have room for improvement.

When we get praised, we often will start to build our ego and self-worth around that thing. This is dangerous, because our self-worth shouldn’t really be based in what we do; it’s just who we are, and it is still there even when we can’t do something anymore, or we can’t do it as well as we thought.

We shouldn’t stop praising people, but we need to be careful with our children and praise in the right way. So that they know they have self-worth even if they realize later on that there are millions of people who are smarter than them, and stronger than them, and better than them at doing certain things.

Instead of saying, “You sing really well,” try, “I love to hear you sing.”

Instead of saying, “You are really smart,” say something like, “I really am proud of how hard you have worked in school.”

Sometimes we do things whether we are good at it or not–we do it because we enjoy it. And that’s much better way to be, doing things independent of whether we are better than someone else, doing something because it feels right, instead of doing something to inflate our ego and make us feel better about ourselves.

And stop praising yourself too–you don’t have to BE a good writer or a good singer or good at anything. You just exist. You DO. And that’s enough.

(Written January 2018)

Seeking help

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Often I have pleaded for help from God, but I have often been too proud, too ashamed of my struggles, to reach out to help for others.

The other day, I was dealing with a difficulty in my own life and I wanted better solutions. Though I had prayed, fasted, and talked with my husband, I still didn’t have the answers I wanted.

So I took all my feelings and I wrote an email to my mom, asking for advice.

She wrote me back with exactly the words I needed. Revelation came through her, and then was confirmed and enhanced through the Holy Spirit. I was not able to solve my problem on my own (though I had tried through lots of internet searches). God answered my prayers through others and only after I asked for help.

Sometimes God does not give us the answers in the way we want. We have to do our part in seeking help from others. I’m not saying that we put all our problems out there for everyone to see. Sharing private and personal problems publically can cause hurt and distress. Instead, turn to the Lord first and then share with trusted family members, friends, and others who are put into our lives to help us and guide us.

You don’t have to do it alone. But often we persist in figuratively locking ourselves in a room to deal with our problems, hoping someone will break down the door to help us. We might even shout for help in a vague way. But to receive the help we are entitled to, we have to actually unlock that door and open it through questions and requests for help from the people who already love us and want to help.

That can be so difficult. But it is necessary to receive the full help and blessings that God wants us to have. He will help us know who to reach out to. He can help us know what to say. And He will help us know who we can help when others struggle.

We are not meant to do it by ourselves, even if we want to. We are much better off helping each other through life, but that can only happen if we strip ourselves of pride and unlock the door.

I realized recently that my instinct when I was having a hard time was to isolate myself. Whenever I have hurt and cried, I wanted to be far away from others. It’s still a struggle. But I just started imagining crying while being held by someone else and what that would feel like. That act of visualizing helped start to heal something inside me. I did not have to be ashamed of my tears.

Success in life is not always about knowing the answers; its learning to ask the right questions.

Life is full of struggles for everyone. We need real connection with each other. We need vulnerability, honesty, and trust. When we ask for specific help, we will find it. But often we have to ask first.

dichotomies of life

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Sometimes I have a difficult time staying happy. Sometimes I am really happy and I feel blessed and life is so very good. And then other moments, I feel like I’m falling into a hole of melancholy where nothing seems quite right.

Some of this is related to being a mother. It’s emotionally draining. And there is a constant battle of being unfulfilled on one side and feeling immense guilt on the other. I want to do my own projects, to create and learn on my own, but I end up feeling guilty for not doing enough for my kids.

And add in the regular isolation that happens as a mother. I am a little bit more isolated than a lot of people, as I live over a half hour away from any other family. I want to feel a part of something, and a lot of times I just end up doing it all by myself. Then when I’m around people, sometimes it’s gets exhausting and I just want to go home.

I have a lot going on and I feel incredibly busy in some moments, but then in other moments I have absolutely nothing to do and hours to fill.

Sometimes I just want stability, but that isn’t life. I hate things and I love them, often at the same time.

The only thing to do is to keep trying. But that’s enough. Trying is enough. Because the day starts over and over again, and no matter how many difficult moments there are, I know there is still happiness ahead.