When Idealism Becomes Greed

So yesterday was my day of "my will be done": "my" being "Mary's."    At the end of the day, I was still discontent with the other things I felt I "should have done."  It was interesting.  Many of the things, if not all, were things that I have felt inspired to do at one point or another in the past.  They were all godly things...but still, that feeling that has made me frustrated or mad over the years prevailed.

This morning I woke up with a tune in my head from an old Aesop's Fables tape I played over and over for my kids in the past:

Be content with what you have and make yourself feel glad.To be greedy makes a good heart bad.

 Am I being greedy with what I want to accomplish in my day?
Am I mis-labeling "idealism" with "greed," and thereby insisting that my discontent is a good thing?  Should I not be content with my efforts of seeking the Lord's will day in and day out?  Have I allowed my greed to accomplish everything I see possible in the lives of everyone I have ever met to rob me of the joy and peace I can feel in the moment as I live a beautiful and very full life?

I was thinking about one of my fears I mentioned yesterday, "the fear of failing in the eyes of society." I realized who that was!  It was me!  I am measuring myself against every good thing that everyone has ever done, measuring my efforts, my successes, my failings.

I want to:
-have class after class with my children
-spend hours bonding with my little ones
-paint the house
-cook amazingly scrumptions and healthy dinners
-exercise and do yoga
-spend a long and leisurely time in my scriptures
-update all the kids' scrapbooks
-paint my own creations
-study world history and make powerpoints about them to teach my children
-progress in math and science studies
-learn languages
-do family history
-go to the temple
...and have a clean kitchen and homemade bread, all at the end of one day!

Greed?  Perhaps.  I don't feel it is profitable to go through and analyze each motive to see if it is "greed" or "idealism." I think the question I need to ask myself is this: Is this desire at this moment greedy and is it making my heart "bad"?

To me, "bad" can mean many things in this context: discontent, ungrateful, hating myself, displeased, unsatisfied.

This quote comes to mind, as quoted by President Hinckley:

“[The fact is] most putts don’t drop. Most beef is tough. Most children grow up to be just people. Most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration. Most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. …

“Life is like an old-time rail journey—delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas and thrilling bursts of speed.

“The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride” (“Big Rock Candy Mountains,” Deseret News, 12 June 1973, A4).

Take a deep breath, Mary.  Counsel with God, plan out that day, but then go with the inspired flow that embraces other people's agency, embraces this 24-hour time limit we have to work within.  God works in the scope of eternity, and we are His work and glory.

Then when you lay down at night, be content.  Get some sleep in that boat while the storms rage and trust that you are enough.

How Do I Measure a "Good Day"?

I entered this first in my personal journal, but felt that maybe someone else could benefit from my ramblings.  I don't want to take the time to run through it for errors...here's trusting it may help someone in its unrefined form.

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It has been an interesting last couple of days.

Yesterday,...well, for a couple days, I have felt God wanting me to relax.  To trust Him.

It started on Sunday morning when I woke up panicking about all the things I am not doing: with the kids, with my callings, with my family, with missionary work, with myself, with the house...with Quinn.  I then had that impression of the Savior on the boat, how He was able to sleep through the storm (eternal perspective) and I could too, if I trusted enough.

So, I envisioned myself sleeping on the boat next to the Savior and went back to sleep.

That day, at church, still feeling a little bit of the trailings of my anxiety, I was touched by the words to the opening song (probably the first time that day I had opened up myself to any kind of heavenly answer to my dilemma, via scriptures, prayer or song...):

Come cast your burden at his feet and bear a song away.

Is it really that easy? I thought.  I acted on it, threw my bundle of frustration, anxiety and depression at his feet in my mind...and felt lighter.  More full of hope.  I am bearing a song away, I reflected.   It doesn't make sense, but I will take it.

It was an incredible Sunday, with so many answers to questions.   I have kept a prayer in my heart pretty constantly the last few days, although it has not always been with meekness.  Sometimes, my heart has been full of complaints and whining.  Blegh.  Poor Father.

I have had a few messages given in situations I have been in where the person has admonished us to really pray.  Last night it was during visiting teaching:

A loving Father is only a prayer away.

Do I speak with Him as I would a loving Father?


Back to yesterday.

Monday, I was frustrated at the end of the day.  I had just tried to paint the front room and had met with set-back after set-back.   It seems like such a small thing: paint the front room.  It has already been cut, has pretty limited actual wall space, but between fibers coming off the roller, having to wash it off again, going to get pumpkins as a family and just a day full of awesomeness, I just ran out of time.  Gnash teeth.  My heavenly plea that night, "I worked so hard and I just couldn't do more!! How can I do this??"

(Me and pronouns.  What does "this" mean?  Good question.  I think God is wanting me to figure that out and be specific.  Returning to story.)

So, Tuesday morning rolls around and I woke up already feeling a sense of overwhelmed hopelessness. I can "push" myself all day long, and I will still end up not doing everything I want to do!  Still end up not being enough.  Failing.  (Hmmmm...it is interesting to articulate our emotions and anxiety...)  I had just done a devotional the day before that--about becoming free from our fears, per our monthly theme of "Freedom"--and listed my fears:
-Failing my God
-Failing my children
-Failing in the eyes of society
-Failing to care for my body
-Failure to be a good wife
-Failure to prepare for my mission
-Fear of running out of time...("to do what?" I asked myself.)

I then put an order on them.  Realistically, probably "failing in the eyes of society" came first at that moment, following "failing my God" and "failing my children" in third.  It was a comfort in the moment to realize that failing to be a good wife was far down the list.  I have learned and understood recently, that to be happy and content is truly what I need to do be a good wife.  Quinn is such a good and accepting man, never having imposed any feelings of expectation of who I should be to make him happy.  A true blessing and one that has left me free to become who I need to with a healthier perspective.

But the order kind of shocked me.  Looking at the list of negativity, something Kirk Duncan taught set me immediately to task to counter all that negative with positive, affirmative thoughts. I listed opposite my fears ways I could eliminate or respond to those fears.  And that was even more enlightening.
-Pray and ask
-Seek God's power
-Who does that even mean?
-Pray for help
-I can't in Quinn's eyes...or by being unhappy
-Follow promptings and trust God wants me to be ready

They all involved praying and seeking God!  So the next morning, as I woke up with those feelings of failure and discouragement already looming large in my mind, I heard God say: "Mary, today you need to trust me.  Just let me inspire you.  Trust my inspiration and I will show you what I would have you do...and that you can do it."

So I did.  And I did extra things that He didn't inspire me to do but that I defaulted to: like working on my 6 hour defensive driving course and preparing for our sign-language choir performance on Monday.  But I really did all that He wanted me to do. I could feel it: that sense of heavenly satisfaction.

But was I satisfied? Nope. In fact, I was a little angry. "Why can't your will include finishing this house?!  Why doesn't it include all those other things I want to do??"

I was faced with the fact that maybe I didn't really want to do His will. Or maybe I am just not satisfied with my circumstances, is a better way to put it. Maybe I want to live my existence to fill myself with the satisfaction of finishing, projecting, checking off ambitious lists.  Do I do it for glory?  Do I do it for God?  Do I do it....to find something to love about myself?  Interesting questions.

Last night I felt compelled to open up the seminary teaching guide for this morning.  In it, it covers the Atonement and trial of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  In the manual is posed a question: if the Savior could have called down legions of angels to deliver him, why didn't he?  The question is answered, Because he wanted to do His Father's will.

Is that my desire?  Could I just be content at the end of a day where I feel the confirmation that I did everything God wanted me to do?  Why not?

This morning, I felt God tell me, "Okay, Mary, we did it My Way yesterday.  Now it is your turn.  What would you do differently?"  Good question. It is amazing how light and free I felt at first. I examined that emotion and the beauty of agency filled me.  To choose to follow God, really choose and not be compelled by fear or duty, would mean to rejoice and eagerly seek it, not grudgingly feel compelled to do it or fear of not doing it.  The attitude of obedience is apparently important too, as I can see when I ask my children to do something and I see them eagerly say, "Yes, ma'am!" or glower and drag their feet to do it...or push it behind their lists of "first to be done"-s.

What do I want?  What do I really want?  Do I really want to do God's will?  What if His will is to help me find what will make me happy, and His desire is that I will find happiness in doing those things that He spends eternities doing: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, the latter being the state of our never-dying condition.  Eternal life will be a joyful embracing of those laws that bring us the most happiness, not enduring the whips of compulsion, whether that compulsion is self-generated or not, born out of fear or a sense of competition.

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Remember what I wrote at the beginning?

Yesterday,...well, for a couple days, I have felt God wanting me to relax.  To trust Him

I realize now, it is more than just He wants me to trust Him.  He wants me to be happy and to see the beauty in my day.  He wants to to slow down and see joy.  And be content.

We all have different challenges and places we are in. I have driven myself with the whip of "being anxiously engaged in a good cause" for many years.  I have driven myself with my idealism to "look beyond the mark."  What is this life for?  To prepare to meet God and perform our labors (Alma 34).  Why would we seek for more?  Does Satan have any hand in that?  How would that hurt us, to drive ourselves with that noble ambition?

I wonder if we are not bound by the chains of frustration and fear that accompany that driving of self. I wonder if underlying that is a sense of lack of satisfaction or wonder at ourselves...a wonder at the good work God is doing today with who we are today.