Perspective

One of the reasons I enjoy reading family history stories is the immediate change in perspective it gives me for my own life. I get to see the beginnings and the endings for their adventures. I like that. It reminds me that our situations are always temporary.

Like many families, we have our daily and weekly struggles that take up so much of our time and energy that we forget the more lasting blessings in our life. I have a favorite quote: "Never create a permanent solution to a temporary problem."

Here is an example from my own life of when I DIDN'T follow this advice (Oh, I have a million of these!)

When I was a college student, I got married and very happily became pregnant soon after. I was elated and very focused on becoming a mother. I was already enrolled in my final semester at James Madison University. I was a psychology major, interested in family counseling. Within a few weeks of starting the semester, I became very sick with my pregnancy. I was unable to keep any food or drink down and I was passing out every time I vomited (sorry for the graphic imagery). It made it impossible for me to attend class and I had to take a medical withdrawal. That would have been fine if I would have simply enrolled for the next semester and finished with my giant belly. Instead, I was worrying about our family's immediate finances. In order to make more money, I took a job as a check-out girl at a grocery store and just accepted the fact that I wouldn't be able to finish my degree. I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom anyway, and my mom and married sisters (at the time)didn't have to work, so I would be fine. I put our immediate needs ahead of my long-term goals and aspirations. Now, eventually I did go back and get my degree, but I spent so many years regretting and suffering for the delay. Why did I see things so differently then? Shouldn't I have known the benefits of my finishing early would have far outweighed the temporary need for extra income?

We see things from such a limited perspective. The problems of this week or this month are like huge buildings blocking our view as we try to navigate through city streets. It is so easy to get disoriented and lost this way. If we pull out from the street view and click on the bird's-eye view instead, then we can clearly see the direction we need to go. Those tall buildings become little landmarks and we can see where the street will open up again.

Even looking at other people's lives, it is much easier to see the path they should choose than it is for them to know to choose it. They are blinded by their close perspective. We can help ourselves and others so much by talking about our challenges with people who have a clearer view. Our parents, our siblings, those who love us...especially our Heavenly Father. They can help us more than we can help ourselves because their view is less obstructed by our immediate needs and problems.

It isn't lack of wisdom that causes mistakes, it is lack of perspective.

Has this happened to you? Do you have mistakes that just seem obvious now even though you were trying to do the right thing at the time? How have you been able to change your perspective?

The Fallacy of Self-esteem

When I was in middle school, we had assemblies on "creating good self-esteem". We would get worksheets where we listed what we liked about ourselves. They would send us home with handouts for the parents that listed things to say to your children like "You're terrific!" and "Great job!". It was all an effort to make us feel good about ourselves. Despite these assemblies and handouts, I had peers committing suicide, getting pregnant in high school, and abusing drugs. I remember talking to my mom about having low self-esteem and she SHOCKED me by basically saying that self-esteem wasn't important...She said that as far as she could tell, it was CONTRARY to God's plan that we have good self-esteem.

She didn't mean we shouldn't love ourselves or anything like that. I have thought about this a lot and she was SO RIGHT! Christ teaches us that the first commandment is to love God and the second is to love our fellow man. Never does he mention self-esteem except to say that we should love others as ourselves. Oh how tricky is Satan and his philosophies of men. While we were all trying to develop good self-esteem, we were neglecting higher priorities like service to others and obedience to God's commandments. Things that naturally lead to good self-esteem...because we then understand that we are God's children and that we can do all things in Christ. We were being taught that self-esteem can be created through pretty words and that EVERYONE was "thumb-body". Everyone is valued, but we need to live our lives with PURPOSE. We have work to do. And that work will bring value and confidence to ourselves and our children.

Now that my daughter is in middle school, I find myself worrying about her self-esteem...but I shouldn't. I should worry about how she esteems God and others. If she esteems them as high or higher than herself, she will NATURALLY have good self-esteem. She will know that she is a daughter of God and she will work hard because of the love she feels for Him and her fellow man. And it won't matter that someone in class teased her or she doesn't have the right shoes or the designer blue jeans.

What do you think? Does self-esteem seem contrary to happiness?

I just found this very interesting post on a similar train of thought here. Interestingly, it was written about a week after I first penned my post...Great minds think alike. Ha ha. J/K. That was just my narcissism talking from all those years of self-esteem training.