Here we are again at the beginning of a blog written by me based on so many things that I've been thinking about and listening to recently. It's so strange to me that there are so many patterns in my life and everything that happens to me just seems to combine together to create another beautiful life lesson that I am supposed to remember and reflect on.
Recently I have been trying really hard to go to the gym. Athletic, coordinated and graceful are, unfortunately, words that have never been used to describe me - though I can't imagine why! I'm more successful with swimming and could swim indefinitely without really getting tired but that stamina hasn't ever applied to anything on the land. Perhaps I should've been born a fish.
The treadmill has become my ultimate challenge - running on it for any length of time is my nemesis. When I come off it I glow fluorescent red and have hair sticking out everywhere and am usually trying not to cry. It's not a good look. It lasts for about an hour. So, when I saw a really skinny, pretty, athletic girl running in the gym the other day with hair perfectly in place and with a healthy glow about her I couldn't help being a tiny bit jealous. I coveted her figure and started to wonder how long it would take me to get there. I answered my own question with a defeated, "you'll never get there!" I started to think of all the reasons why I wouldn't; lack of time, lack of care, lack of energy, lack of a decent metabolism, lack of ability to resist chocolate.... pretty soon I had a long list of reasons why I won't ever be skinny.
I looked over at another woman working hard on the treadmill and immediately felt stupid for feeling and thinking the things I had been considering. She was a much bigger woman but she had her head down and was on her way. Clearly, she was determined to make a change to her body and her health and she wasn't sitting there bemoaning her present body weight. (Maybe she was but I'm not telepathic!) It started me thinking about the journey that both of those ladies was on and how unfair it would be to compare them if one of them had been working hard for years to achieve her goal and the other was just beginning her path to the desired weight. My attitude needed an overhaul as I realised that I was comparing myself to what in my mind was the finished article when I was just at the beginning too.
Sometimes we get to a point in our lives where we feel like we should be complete. When Ben and I got married that was certainly something that I thought would be a reality. I would find and marry someone who had all things in life worked out and at that moment he would find me because I would also be a complete person and thus we were 'ready' to marry. It's surprising to realise as you go through the day-to-day that neither of us is the finished article yet. Ben isn't yet the optimum of what he can be and neither am I. Somehow, both of us must (and often do) look past that, seeing the potential in each other but allowing space for us to achieve what we need to at our own pace. We've made massive advances together; but life is still going to throw many more situations at us that will shape and mould our characters.
As newly-weds it can be difficult to imagine how we're ever going to be at the point some of our friends are at. Especially our friends with children. I know how much responsibility I took on getting married because it was a commitment to look after someone else; so I can't even imagine how it will be to take on a new little person who can't already feed, clothe and toilet him/herself! I have so much admiration for some of the women around me who have raised children, served others, worked full-time jobs or a combination of the above. It's easy to feel about them the same way I did about the girl at the gym - OHMIGOODNESSHOWAMIEVERGOINGTOBEASGOODASTHAT?!
One of the answers to that question came in the 2011 Relief Society session of conference from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf:
"I want to tell you something that I hope you will take in the right way: God is fully aware that you and I are not perfect.
Let me add: God is also fully aware that the people you think are perfect are not.
And yet we spend so much time and energy comparing ourselves to others—usually comparing our weaknesses to their strengths. This drives us to create expectations for ourselves that are impossible to meet. As a result, we never celebrate our good efforts because they seem to be less than what someone else does.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It’s wonderful that you have strengths.And it is part of your mortal experience that you do have weaknesses.
God wants to help us to eventually turn all of our weaknesses into strengths, but He knows that this is a long-term goal. He wants us to become perfect, and if we stay on the path of discipleship, one day we will. It’s OK that you’re not quite there yet. Keep working on it, but stop punishing yourself.
Dear sisters, many of you are endlessly compassionate and patient with the weaknesses of others. Please remember also to be compassionate and patient with yourself. In the meantime, be thankful for all the small successes in your home, your family relationships, your education and livelihood, your Church participation and personal improvement. Like the forget-me-nots, these successes may seem tiny to you and they may go unnoticed by others, but God notices them and they are not small to Him. If you consider success to be only the most perfect rose or dazzling orchid, you may miss some of life’s sweetest experiences..."
"...Our journey toward perfection is long, but we can find wonder and delight in even the tiniest steps in that journey."
Interestingly, President Uchtdorf talked about journeys in the Young Women's session of conference this year. He told the girls to look around themselves at the people who they were sitting by:
"Of one thing you can be certain: every person you see—no matter the race, religion, political beliefs, body type, or appearance—is family. The young woman you look at has the same Heavenly Father as you, and she left His loving presence just as you did, eager to come to this earth and live so that she could one day return to Him.
However, she might feel alone, just as you sometimes do. She may even occasionally forget the purpose of her journey. Please remind her through your words and your actions that she is not alone. We are here to help each other."
It makes such a difference to know that we are family and that we are all progressing together. Knowing that those around me, those that I consider as perfect, are not perfect doesn't make me feel complacent about where I am just as knowing that the girl at the gym used to be a major fatty and occasionally still binge-eats wouldn't have made me feel like I'm fine to maintain a higher weight. It makes me admire the progress they have made. It makes me want to run with them and learn from them!
It touched me a lot recently to read the Mormon.org profile that my sister set up. It hit me hard how much progress she has made. She recently got married, too, and lives in Liverpool with her husband. She's nearly finished a degree in Dance and until reading this profile I was completely oblivious to how well she could write. Becky has always been really capable but totally bored by schoolwork and thus imagining her sitting down for the length of time it took to write this neat, grammatically perfect, logically progressing and ultimately clever auto-biographical account just about blew my mind. I'm not saying that she's "the finished article" or, in fact, that any of us are. It just made me realise how much progress does occur and how incredible it can be to take a step back and look at what the people around us achieve and become along their journey.
We have to be kind to those who might be younger than us or less experienced. It made me sad to hear on the radio today the discussion about a mother who was kicked off a bus because her two year old daughter was having a tantrum. It must have been difficult to concentrate for the driver and I have some sympathy for how he must have been feeling. The thing that shocked me was how many people were writing and phoning in ready to criticise the parenting of others or even the behaviour of the child. Those who criticised were obviously the skinny people far along their journey who were turning around to scorn the 'fatties' that hadn't quite got to their lofty heights yet; their victims were the children and young parents who quite obviously might not quite be 'there' yet on the massive learning curve of life or raising a child. Those who critiqued the children had no doubt had their fair share of tantrums in their younger days.
Another topic that has drawn my attention and stimulated my brain recently is the topic of parents and what a strange relationship the 'in-law' relationship is. Ben came along and took me from my loving parents who'd poured twenty-two years of hard-work, sweat, tears and service in to making me a person who was beginning to be tolerable just so that he could reap the reward. In some strange way it is like I was given to them but when it was my choice I flew away. I love my parents and still there was this part of me that could never have been complete in their home - I needed to make my own to continue on this journey.
I've seen my parents grow- not from their earliest days but I have seen the constant changes and challenges and lessons they have been learning as I have grown up. It's easy to assume when you first meet people that they always have been as you are when you meet them and that they always will be. Despite knowing that you yourself will never be "the finished article" - you assume that every day about the people around you. I'm grateful to parents who taught me that life is about continuously trying and, if you can do nothing else, just loving people - they are my greatest example of that.
I've seen my parents grow- not from their earliest days but I have seen the constant changes and challenges and lessons they have been learning as I have grown up. It's easy to assume when you first meet people that they always have been as you are when you meet them and that they always will be. Despite knowing that you yourself will never be "the finished article" - you assume that every day about the people around you. I'm grateful to parents who taught me that life is about continuously trying and, if you can do nothing else, just loving people - they are my greatest example of that.
Here is my conclusion:
"...I invite you to walk confidently and joyfully. Yes, the road has bumps and detours and even some hazards. But don’t focus on them. Look for the happiness your Father in Heaven has prepared for you in every step of your journey." Dieter F. Uchtdorf
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