Category: inspiration

It’s a new year. People often set new resolutions at the beginning of January in an effort to do better. I have not done that this year. I am instead currently working on seasonal planning, which means that instead of planning a whole year in advance, I plan the year in 3-4 different sections. I just don’t know what life will be like and what I need to work on beyond the next few months.

In addition to seasonal planning, I’ve been trying to focus my goals on processes instead of to-do lists. Changing my processes gets a lot more done than just adding everything to my to-do list.

When I’m focused on improving my processes, that means I’m trying to make good habits for myself. But new habits aren’t formed by willpower alone.

Willpower works more as a muscle, not a choice. If I try to change all of my habits all at once, I’m going to burn out quickly because I don’t have the strength to do that.

So instead of changing my behavior by pure willpower, I need to change my environment.

If I want to wake up early, I have to set an alarm that automatically goes if. If I want to go to bed earlier, I have my computer shut off the internet before bed. If I have the couch facing the TV, I watch more TV. I change the couch to face the windows, and I have less desire to stare at a screen.

I can put fruit on the counter to eat more fruit. I can fill up my extremely large water bottle in the morning so that I drink more water. And if I buy less cereal, we eat less cereal.

Often, our bad habits and negative behaviors are coupled along with a certain environment. When my house gets really messy, I often get depressed. Those things come together. So if I want to keep myself from depression, then I clean my house.

If you have goals to change your behavior, look around at your environment first. What parts of your environment are coupled with negative behaviors? What parts are couple with positive behaviors?

Instead of focusing on the goal-setting of what you want to accomplish, you also have to build your life to make it really easy to accomplish your goals. Good behaviors don’t come from strong discipline–they come from good environments.

In January, there was fog like I’ve never seen before. It stayed around for days, and the frost kept building and building on everything until it looked like snow.

It was beautiful. But I was so ready for the sun to come out.

It did come. The sun melted all the frost and that frost and fog were forgotten. Its beauty was mostly forgotten too, as the relief of the sunshine erased the heaviness of what had been.

And that’s my metaphor for the year. There was a pandemic, and in some ways, it was beautiful. But it was heavy too, and we are all waiting for the sun to come out again.

It will. Life will shift back to normal.

And we’ll look back at the photographs and we’ll remember that we’ve forgotten how beautiful it was–painful and heavy and beautiful all at once.

It’s the sort of thing you want to have experienced, but you never wish for it again in your life.

Let us not forget to look around at what is now, for even when the sun is darkened, the fog sits heavy in our hearts, and the frost begins to grow–even that is a moment that you can never have again. 

For our family scripture study, Dillon started reading a familiar scripture:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. (Helaman 5:12)

As he read, I realized I hadn’t paid much attention to the scripture. I just thought it was about building your foundation on Jesus Christ: you keep the commandments, you build on the rock, and you’ll be okay. But there is more to that scripture.

I suddenly connected to the phrase “gulf of misery and endless wo,” because I have felt that way before: discouraged and miserable and horrible. I thought I was building my foundation on Jesus Christ–I read my scriptures, pray, repent, and keep the commandments. Why do I get so miserable sometimes?

Temptations can be different than I expect. Sometimes I am tempted to lie, steal, cheat, waste time, or be mean to someone else. But more often, I am tempted with doubt, questions, pride, and discouragement.

What if my emotional foundation was built upon Jesus Christ? What if I was able to build patience and faith and hope–so much so, that no matter what happened, I would never be discouraged because I believed in Jesus?

My faith is often too reliant on my circumstances, and when things are difficult, I wonder if God cares. But He does care, and he provides for me over and over again. Maybe it isn’t in huge miraculous ways–in fact, the most powerful way that He helps me is that when I rely on Him with humility and gratitude, I never feel discouraged or miserable, no matter what happens to me. I feel happy.

• Instead of worrying about what bad thing might happen, we can rejoice in what good things will happen.
• When we try to make positive changes, it works. We improve the world daily.
• For every worst-case scenario, there is also a best-case scenario.
• Nothing can grow exponentially forever. Growth levels off.
• We have had so many innovations, development, and major advances in the world in the last few decades.
• We notice the negative so that we can fix it. But then when we fix it, we don’t notice anymore.
• People do good things all on their own all the time. People are a force for good.
• We can’t predict the future–but we can choose to make our future better.
• Over the history of the entire world, things always get better in the long-term.
• There is humor and goodness in every hard situation.

It can be really easy to get discouraged right now. But there is so much good happening. We will get through this time, and we will probably be better off at the end of it.

Sometimes I am reading a book or watching a movie and I want to make sure that everything will work out all right in the end of it. When it’s a TV show, I often know that things will work out because there is another episode. But isn’t that life? There is always another episode, which means that we continue on and we don’t have to be afraid of an unpleasant ending.

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place. -Rumi

There have been times when I rejected sorrow, wishing for a happy and easy life. I did not want to feel sad. I did not want to struggle.

I would pray seeking relief. I would pray that everything could just change and everything would become better all at once. And while there have been many times when I have been delivered, I find myself profoundly grateful for my sorrow as well.

In hard times, I have not looked to the gospel to save me from those times, but to save me through those times. The gospel gave me continual hope and guidance–I could not see the end, but I could hope in each next step. I have built my faith because of difficult times.

Miracles happen. And miracles happen not because everything is easy, but because they are hard.

Things are rough right now. Pandemics and earthquakes and economic uncertainty. We are looking at a recession and a health crisis and we are all stuck at home, isolated from normal life. I’ve been checking the news constantly, though I’m not sure what I am looking for–some way to understand this? Some morsel of hope that this will end and life can go back to normal?

But it will end. We will recover. That’s what people do. We pick themselves up and we keep going.

There is hope. So much hope. I have been reading some books about when times were harder than they are now–times in war and famine; times where disease was rampant and healthcare was almost nonexistent and children and parents died. We have learned so much since then–we have learned how to treat and prevent disease, how to stabilize an economy, and how to build better infrastructure.

Let’s not feel entitled to our comforts and our easy way of living. We are accustomed to good health and to readily available care. Our large, warm homes protect us with readily available food and supplies in abundance. We are used to continual growth and innovation and prosperity. And those things haven’t gone away.

We are resilient. The hard things in life do not derail us from the love and hope and charity that abound in the world. The hard things are a catalyst to strengthen all that is good. We can remember everything that we have and to be extraordinarily grateful.

While so many things are shut down, we have the internet that allows us to continue on in remarkable ways. We can still see each other and talk to each other. Our schools and work can transition to our computers and phones. With our technology, we can order basically anything we want to buy and stay updated with the latest news and find stories of people helping and serving others. And we can listen to messages of hope.

It’s a time for a different type of growth. We can learn humility, preparedness, self-reliance, unity, and connection with our families. And we can feel hope and peace that the Lord’s hand is in our life in the small details.

My Grandma Walker passed away two days ago. But she saw the good things in the world. I remember her smiling often. She was so grateful for other people. She trusted in God’s love for her. When she was young, her family would be running out of food and she would go down to the cellar and always find something more. As a teacher throughout her life, she shared her faith in others. Miracles were not the exception; miracles were how the Lord worked and she saw them often in her life.

I have hope this morning, even though it is Wednesday and I usually hate Wednesdays. It can be a good Wednesday because I am grateful for my family, for this world, for the chance to write this, and for happiness and joy that will always return and persist through any difficult time.