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  • All kinds of love

    I’ve been talking about the five love languages with my husband lately. We took the quizzes to figure out what our love languages were, but I didn’t particularly like the results. I would rather quality time than gifts, but I still want gifts.

    I need all different types of love. I need physical affection and gifts and quality time and words of affirmation and acts of service. I don’t need one and not another; I need all of it. I want all of it.

    And so I need to give in so many different ways. Dillon and I don’t particularly like gifts, but we exchanged Christmas gifts this year and loved it. If we never exchange gifts at all, then something feels a bit missing from our relationship.

    I need to show all kinds of love to my children. I need to spend time with them. I need to talk with them. I need to help them out. And I need to hug and kiss them and tuck them into bed.

    I don’t want to be fluent in one love language; I want to be fluent in all of them. Only then can I really give the love that I need to as a wife and a mother and a friend.

     

  • Possibilities and Planning

    Possibilities and Planning

    I want a five year plan. I keep on rethinking the directions I’m heading and want to feel a little bit more stable about my options for the future.

    But I know that this plan isn’t going to be linear and clear. Life turns out a lot different than I expect it to. Five years ago, I had little idea of where I would be right now. I just graduated with an economics degree and now I have a part-time job working for FamilySearch doing image audits. I have four kids who take up most of my time and attention. I’m writing a book.

    I don’t know where I will be in five years (possibly in the exact same place, but I really hope I’m sitting on a different couch). But I do know that there are a few different options that I want to pursue.

    So instead of a five-year plan that looks like this:

    I want a five-year plan that looks like this:

    A plan doesn’t need to tell me exactly what I want to do. Instead, a plan gives me guidance on which opportunities I want to pursue. And then some of those opportunities will work out and be the right fit, and some of them won’t be.

  • Try Less to Be More

    Try Less to Be More

    I want to fix everything about myself all at the same time. Spiritually, I want to read my scriptures, say my prayers, and grow in my faith and testimony to God. Physically, I want to exercise for longer, go to bed earlier, wake up earlier, eat less sugar, and drink more water. Socially, I want to serve my neighbors, reach out to friends, and spend more time with family. Mentally, I want to spend less time on my computer, be less distracted, and improve my focus.

    And I would also like to take better care of my children, cook more meals, save more money, go outside more–all of it.

    But guess what? I can’t do it all at once. I can’t fix every weakness. I can’t change all my habits. I’ve tried and it didn’t work.

    Lately, I’ve had one basic goal: wake up at 6:00 in the morning and get ready for the day. It’s really simple and mostly attainable.

    That small goal has made a big impact on my life. I feel like I’m improving. I feel more capable and less discouraged. My to-do list gets done better. I’ve been able to focus a little more. Other habits are improving too, even when I’m not focused on the.

    I wish improvement came all at once, but it doesn’t. It comes in small and simple steps, one thing at a time. And I improve much more quickly when I focus my efforts on one small thing instead of trying to change everything about my life all at once.

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  • Living, culture, faith

    Intellect: burning, fueled by questions and answers and questions and doubt. The facts and the arguments and the proofs can burn so hot that they melt and change and reform. Refining when kept in control, but destroying when it attempts to answer everything.

    Culture is the lens which we view everything and we are yelled at that we must get the culture right–culture that claims to be an argument between rights and wrongs that conflict and have nothing to do with actual right and wrong. Culture is framing and anchoring that makes the facts and the opinions shift around, dancing into something unrecognizably.

    People didn’t use to smile like we do–but they cried, so sadness is more universal than laughter. We forget that we did not know. 

    I don’t have answers.

    Faith: is everything. A home that protects me if I refuse to burn it down. A fire that warms if I do not put it out. A plant that grows unless I cut it down. Safety and love and hope, but always a choice.

    Deep rabbit holes of questions. I must understand more perspectives; I must know more answers. Simplicity is impossible and according to others, there are complications, addendums, footnotes to the beliefs I claim to have. 

    Truth is truth and truth exists. But truth does not destroy that which is good. And that which is good is uncomplicated and simply good.

    I am a combination of heuristics, pretending to be a being of reason and rationality when I am always working from habit, doing that which is comfortable, doing that which is safe. 

    Faith is purpose behind heuristic, a choice without habit. Faith is me.

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  • Coupling and Willpower: Make Life Easy for Yourself

    Coupling and Willpower: Make Life Easy for Yourself

    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.

  • Christmas

    Christmas

    Last year after Christmas was over, I wrote a note to myself:

    Make a few meaningful events instead of lots of things. Don’t feel guilty for not doing service every day. It’s okay. Gingerbread houses, snowflakes, and remember the nativity. It’s okay to do something once instead of every year. Christmas: Do dinner for lunch. We don’t like ham and potatoes. Frog eye salad is good, and maybe a random assortment of favorite things. Don’t do too much food. Go and do something together outside on Christmas, like sledding or hiking or sight seeing.

    The note to myself has been helpful this year. I haven’t followed all of it, but reading it allowed me to approach the holidays with less guilt. I have been trying to have a Christmas season that works for us and our family, instead of just doing things because there is some sort of expectation.

    I am looking at the note, “Don’t do too much food,” and realizing that I have planned for too much food again this year. At least the food doesn’t include potato casserole and ham, which was a yearly tradition that we didn’t even like.

    But I have done a few meaningful events: we attempted gingerbread houses, we looked at Christmas lights, we had a virtual family party, and we completed a move-a-thon fundraiser. I have served other people and reached out to neighbors and friends, but I’ve been more flexible about it, which has opened up better opportunities.

    Growing up, Christmas felt incredibly significant. And I was trying to always keep that feeling, but it ended up starting to feel very heavy. I don’t need Christmas time to be different and special and complicated.

    Christmas is a time to focus on Jesus Christ, and that’s a simple thing. Christmas is best when it becomes simple–when Christmas isn’t about the abundance of trying to do everything, but about doing the most important things.

    Christmas isn’t always the same. This year, I took my kids Christmas shopping (at an actual store). I bought a present for my husband (we haven’t exchanged presents for years). The pandemic means that parties have been virtual and events have been simplified. My decorations are haphazard. I haven’t really watched any Christmas movies. I’ve neglected presents I could have given.

    I didn’t everything I wanted to do this year in the way I wanted to do it, but I don’t feel guilty about it. I’m just grateful for where I’m at.

    Next year will look different too. And it probably won’t be particularly special. But life isn’t about creating significance through enthusiastic perfectionism, but seeing the significance in small moments.

    When I free myself of burdensome expectations that are laced with guilt, I get a little closer to enjoying the holiday season how I really want to enjoy it: simple, fun, and better focused on Jesus Christ.

  • The Sun Comes Out

    The Sun Comes Out

    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. 

  • Thoughts

    Thoughts

    A few weeks ago, I was weed whacking my yard. I sometimes got a little stuck at looking right in front of me, and I found that I had to look up and around to make sure I was going in the right direction. That’s a bit like life: I can get stuck in the day-to-day that I can forget to make sure I’m heading in the right direction and not missing anything important. (Also, it does not do any good to conserve string. It just makes the process last longer.)

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    Finding happiness when life is hard is so much more satisfying than when life is easy

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    When I seek to serve others and live as God would have me, things make sense. When I seek popularity and status and likes and followers and shares, I only find confusion. I do not need success; I simply need God.

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    You don’t have to understand what Satan is trying to tell you.

     

     

     

  • Technology: Pushing it out of your life

    Like most people in the world today, sometimes I waste too much time on social media and other websites. They are designed be addictive, after all, and rabbit holes are encouraged in the never-ending display of suggested content.

    But when I focus on getting rid of that wasted time, I usually fail. I have created some better habits. On my phone, for example, I don’t have any social media apps. I’ve also removed email and my web browser. The only notifications I have are for texts and calls. I also unfollow people, try to have screen-free time, have a blocking program on my computer (FocusMe), and use one site (AllSides.com) to check on news.

    All those things aren’t enough. I still waste time on my computer and phone–it’s not a personal weakness as much as simply a really difficult problem.

    But here is the one thing that has worked the very best: crowding out wasted time with doing good things. When I have free time, technology sucks it up like a vacuum. But when I have lots to do, technology gets pushed out of my life in favor of better things.

    This week was very busy. I had to work on painting my house to get ready for winter and I had two papers to write for my classes in school. It’s also Halloween and I worked to spend time with my kids. When I planned to do many good things, I didn’t have time to waste.

    Good habits are better formed by crowding out the bad habits in favor of something better. Focusing on my negative technology use and trying to eliminate it is focusing on the wrong thing–I should instead look at what that technology is preventing me from doing, and work on increasing good works in my life.

    I want to read books and write and play games with my family and learn new things and serve others. When I plan for that in my life, my technology habits take care of themselves.

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  • Beliefs

    Beliefs

    I recently read this article:

    People say, “You should be true to your beliefs.” While that is true, you cannot be better than what you know. Most of us act based on our beliefs, especially what we believe to be in our self-interest. The problem is, we are sometimes wrong….

    When we act badly, we may think we are bad, when in truth we are just wrong. The challenge is not so much closing the gap between our actions and our beliefs; rather, the challenge is closing the gap between our beliefs and the truth.

    I’ve been stressed and worried at times. Lots of times. It’s easy to blame my circumstances, or to think that I am somehow not strong enough. I want to do better. I mean to do better. Then I don’t.

    But my emotions and actions are not caused by my environment. They are caused by my beliefs. If I am to change my emotions and actions, then I must change my beliefs.

    I often don’t analyze my own thoughts and beliefs, simply looking at my actions. I found myself discouraged, and focused so much on the discouragement that I felt hopeless to stop it. But when I looked at my beliefs, I was able to understand myself and the discouragement dissipated as my beliefs became a little bit closer to the truth.