Life Is Meant to Be Uncomfortable (Part I)

I'm struggling with an uncomfortable idea: that if my life is comfortable, I'm living it wrong. I've been feeling more and more lately that I need to choose harder things for the greatest good for myself and others. It makes me uneasy.

Have you ever thought about how easy it is to be selfish in life? All I want to is to have a job I like, make a decent income, have fun, have good relationships with friends and family, and to enjoy my free time. It's easy enough to do in most places in America. I don't want to be faced with uncomfortable realities about other people's lives. I don't want to be aware of other suffering and impossible problems while I live the life I want. Even if I'm aware of injustice or pain, there's too much of it in the world for me to do anything about, so it's easier to just shut out the reality that other people are living. It's easy to ignore messages from other people who want to help and instead watch old shows and movies on Netflix.

I've had one time in my life where I had to face hardship every day. It was on the 18-month mission I served for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the East Coast. I'm typically a quiet girl and a bit of a homebody. I hate arguments and conflict and most types of unnecessary "drama." I'm easy going and unobtrusive. I like being left to live my own life the way I want, and I don't tell people how to run their lives. I was going to college and I loved cultures and travel.

I moved from Utah where we tend to dominate the local culture. Certainly we dominate the history of the state. Our churches dominate more than any other religion. You can't hide from us, and you can't fight us too much, because whether you are Mormon or not, whether you like us or not, we are part of the reality of living in Utah. I was normal and average. From here, I moved East where opinions run strong against us and many other religions. By putting on a name tag and approaching someone's front door, I changed from being an unassuming, normal, 22-year old woman who liked people and was going places to an ignorant, brainwashed member of cult destined for hell and determined to take as many people with me as I could.

I was astonished at how some people treated me. I was hurt that people judged me so quickly and never showed a thread of interest in the fact that I was a person. Sometimes, I just wanted to tell people about who I am. Regardless of their interest in my message, I wanted to feel human. Not everyone was bad. I had a number of people who politely declined to hear our message, but brought us in during hot summers for cold water or juice or in during the freezing winters to warm up. But sometimes I struggled with what I was doing. I often felt that people are going to be the way they are and nothing I was doing would change them. Some people wanted to be ignorant and mean. Some people really did feel happy by doing things to make us feel bad, even bringing us to tears sometimes. I'm lucky I'm a girl, because I truly believe most people held back the worst in themselves that they wouldn't hold back for the two boys in tags who might end up at their door.

Sometimes people's opinions of me started to get to me. Maybe what I was doing was wrong. I was bothering people. By knocking on someone's door (or sometimes just even existing) I was disrupting people. How rude. I was asking them to change something. Terrible. I was disrupting their status quo. Who did I think I was? Many times I wanted to shrink back and go home to Utah where I could be myself.

I didn't want to be a quitter though. So I stayed for the full term. I'm so glad I did. I learned a lot through the constant and daily struggle. Sometimes it seems that everyone else's opinions would overwhelm me, but eventually, I began to learn to care less about the criticizing voices, and I learned to listen to my own and God's. God's voice, and my own, got stronger. I began feeling more confident. I knew what I was doing was important. I knew it was right. I knew it was good. It was freeing to decide and actually believe that the dissenting voices didn't matter. They lost their ability to hurt me. It was amazing. I knew what was happening. I knew I'd never be as shy and insecure as I'd been before. I knew I could do hard things in the face of large opposition. I knew I could stand out separately from the voices of the world.

It wasn't long after I got home though that with the lack of constant opposition I began to get lax and comfortable again. While I did change irreversibly in some ways, some habits like avoiding potential conflicts through passivity came back. I had small reminders from time to time that I was getting complacent, but I was quick to justify myself.

It started changing as I began reading for one of my classes "Strength to Love" by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This book was full of great quotes, philosophies and ideas that kept chipping away at my justifications for living the easy life. Here are some examples:

Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position that stands out sharply and clearly from the prevailing opinion. The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that it will include everything and so popular that it will include everybody...Not a few men, who cherish lofty and noble ideals, hide them under a bushel for fear of being called different...How few people have the audacity to express publicly their convictions, and how many  have allowed themselves to be 'astronomically intimidated'!" (14)

In what ways have I allowed myself to be "astronomically intimidated?" What do I do to soften my beliefs or convictions in the face of people who I think may disagree?

Everybody seeks to be well-adjusted...but there are some things in our world to which men of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination...Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

Am I adjusted to the evils and injustices around me?

This has been a beginning to the call I feel that I'm getting to go back into the flames as it were. More on the next post (Part II).

Getting back on the Bandwagon

Ok,

I was going strong for a while with an uber-productive schedule. I was sleeping about four hours a night (a first for me) and getting so much done during the day. Then I got sick and I haven't yet made it back to the same productivity level even though the illness has gone.

It's easy to get depressed at these times for me. Luckily, I had a book I was reading that really helped. It's called "Change the World: How Ordinary People Can Accomplish Extraordinary Results" by Robert E. Quinn (now in My Favorite Books section to the right.)

I was thinking about all the ways I feel incompetent or incapable and wishing I was different when I came across this gem:

We feel bad, in part, because we know that we have the potential to be more than we are, yet here we are choosing to behave in ways that increasingly diminish the self. The more divided we become, the more disempowered, worthless, and unlovable we feel. The divided self is the diminished self, the self in the process of deterioration and slow death. (pg. 78)

I thought, this is how I feel right now! So I kept reading to find what the solution was and I found this:

To be fully alive, we need to be engaged with what is really happening around us from moment to moment [Quinn calls this "emergent reality"]...but to engage emergent reality often means that we won't have all the answers, we will have to learn as we go. In the midst of uncertainty, we have to come up with creative solutions. Then through trial and error, we have to mold the potential solution into something that will work.

Quinn suggests that being able to regularly do this gives us "unconditional confidence, that is, confidence that comes from knowing that we can learn our way through virtually any situation."

I sometimes trap myself in a paradox, and I've noticed other people doing it to. I get trapped in the idea that I can't do something until I can gain more confidence, but it's in doing difficult things that we gain it.

So I'm trying to wade in to the mess I've created by my own procrastination and dealing with it as best as I can. I'm already feeling a lot better, and I'm making progress, I'm gaining more and more hope. I'm still not there yet. I feel I may not get there completely until after I graduate and can finally say, "Yes! I actually did it!" It's tough because now is the time I need to really be looking at jobs but I still don't feel like I can look potential employers in the face and tell them that I'm an idea candidate for their company and why.

But! I'm getting there. Life is full of trying. Progress comes in *constantly* facing fears, inadequacies, and uncertainty.

I hope you may do the same.

Feeling lost...

I'm having a few conflicts relating to my personal peace lately. I don't feel I really have any. I think I know what I need to do to get it, but it's just so difficult to make myself give time to them even though I know it'll help me.

I've taken on a lot of meaningful projects here at the school. I've been keeping up with them and my job and classes fairly well, but I feel like everything is mostly done just enough to get by and get started on the next task.

The one thing I lack the most now is the freedom to just sit and think, or observe, or chat with people at different hangouts.

 

Instead I am glued to my phone sending emails and texts, checking on assignments and to-do lists, going from work to class, to meetings to more meetings, and then a couple more meetings. I'm keeping up for now but I'm worried about the breaking point.

On the other hand, I'm handling things so well, I feel that my capacities for accomplishing more things are improving, but I'm not sure what the cost is. What's the point of doing everything if I give up personal space and peace for it?

Why am I so busy?

For one, it's my last semester. This is the last chance for me to take advantage of the opportunities provided by my school. Mentorship program? Yes! Sign me up! Business Plan Competition? Great idea! Social entrepreneurship project? Sounds meaningful. Be a club president? I've never done it before, so why not?

At the same time I'm juggling readings, assignments, papers, and extensive team projects both in classes and at work.

I don't even want to get started on work, but I'm not sure if they realize that the amount of extra assignments they are asking from me are not possible to do in the time frame that I work along with the other responsibilities that I have.

Ah well.  This is life I think. If I can't learn to find time for myself now, I'll have to figure it out later because I know it won't just fix itself.

Besides all that, I still have no job prospects or applications even out there for when I graduate. Guess there's always back-packing and globetrotting...

 

A little late for MLK Day, but...

Ok,

I always knew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pretty cool guy. But for my Peacebuilding class, we read one of his books, "Strength to Love." What an amazing and powerful speaker! This book has deeply affected me, and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

At the risk of beginning and staying up late because I can't stop, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

"One of the great tragedies of life is that men seldom bridge the gulf between practice and profession, between doing and saying. A persistent schizophrenia leaves so many of us tragically divided against ourselves. On the one hand, we proudly profess certain sublime and noble principles, but on the other hand, we sadly practice the very antithesis of those principles."

The above quote is part of a theme throughout the whole book that makes its readers aware, page by page, that they are living far below their capacity for peace and good in the world. You cannot read this book as a feel-good book. When you read it, you feel your hypocrisies start to expose themselves to you and you feel inspired to be better.

"...we must recognize that the evil deed of the enemy-neighbor, the thing that hurts, never quite expresses all that he is. An element of goodness may be found even in our worst enemy....This simply means that there is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies."

I like this quote and the sermon its a part of because Dr. King is so masterful at making every person into a human being instead of a monster. Even after being stabbed, threatened, having his house bombed, etc, Dr. King did not hate individual people or blame them for the evil in the world. He saw them as his brothers and sisters who were victims of evil instead of perpetrators of it, and he saw potential for redemption, kindness, cooperation and friendship even in the most ignorant and racist people. Here is another quote:

"To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour an beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom, but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process, and our victory will be a double victory."

I believe Dr. King had a high sense of integrity, not just because he was a pastor and could write very intelligent-sounding words, but because he actually lived by them. He exacts a high price from his followers. He expects them not to be silent. He expects them to fight for what is right no matter the cost.

"Do not despair if you are condemned and persecuted for righteousness' sake. When you testify for truth and justice, you are liable to scorn. Often you will be called an impractical idealist or a dangerous radical...Sometimes you may be put in jail. If such is the case, you must honorably grace the jail with your presence. It may mean losing a job or social standing with your particular group. Even if physical death is the price that some must pay to free their children from psychological death, then nothing could be more Christian. Do no worry about persecution, American Christians; you must accept this when you stand up for a great principle."

Dr. King experienced all of the things he described here. He gave his life for the cause he believed in. I could keep going, but I think I'll leave off for now.

Calling People

So one of my goals in my class this semester was to connect more with people from my past.  This may be a result of being an army brat as a kid and moving many places as an adult. I tend to basically "move on" whenever I leave one place and I'm not very good at keeping up contact with people. That, and as silly as it sounds, it actually makes me nervous to call people, even or perhaps, especially, those that mean the most to me. I'm not sure why. I think part of it is I'm afraid to hear bad news or because I've not chatted with someone in so long that maybe they hate me now.  I don't know why I think stuff like this but I do.

The first thing I've noticed is that it's pretty hard to get a hold of people. The first time I tried I called several people but no one picked up. One called me back fairly soon--an old mission companion of mine. It was fun to hear her voice and hear about her family and job. She's such a positive person and she was a light in my life as a missionary. Best of all, she's HILARIOUS. Missions are stressful things, and she really helped me along with her humor.

After that, my phone got all weird and DIED on me! And everyone else I had tried to call tried calling me back during that time but it was a few days before I got a new phone in the mail. I made a post on facebook asking if people wanted to skype me. It was partly in jest, but I was happy to get in contact with two more people from the mission! My favorite couple from the mission.  I wish I had taken a screen shot. It's been a long time since I've seen them, and I really wonder why I don't skype more! It's great to see people you're talking to. They felt the same and we had a nice little online "reunion." 

After I got my phone I tried a few more. There were many people who couldn't answer and a few old numbers that don't work anymore. I called my great-aunt to wish her a happy birthday, which I've never done for her before. She was on her way to Mexico! I was glad to hear it because it's so cold in Utah right now.

So far, I've had some pretty good experiences. I talked with my adopted "Grandma" for a little bit to catch up with things. I haven't seen her and her husband in over a year. She's been very supportive of me in my life, and she was a role model in a crucial time in my life. It was a pretty normal chat, which made me wonder, why I don't do it more often.

I also chatted with a former co-worker. She and her husband were just called to serve as Mission Presidents in a Spanish-speaking mission for the Church. She and her husband will find out next month where they will go. Since the Church has changed the minimum age for serving missions, there have been thousands more applications than usual. The size of missions is increasing and there are more than triple the amount of sister missionaries! They have two daughters who are missionary age now and they are both working on their papers. Their oldest, a son, just finished a two-year mission in Japan last November. How cool to have an entire missionary family!

Still, it's been a bit scary sometimes to call some people. Some I really love and admire so much but I just haven't done it. I hope to buckle down these next few weeks and call up the people that I miss and truly examine my feelings of fear regarding contacting them after a prolonged silence from me.

So I'm resurrecting this blog.

For class. I'm in the last required class for the Intercultural Peace-Building Certificate at BYU-Hawaii. My teacher, Dr. Ford, has structured the class so that we as students created our own learning framework. We will entirely grade ourselves for this project.

As part of my reflection and accountability, I'll be reporting about my progress here on my blog.

I don't think I'll post my whole framework and goals here, but you can see if you'd like here.

I have several things that I wanted to do every week. One was contact more people in my life. This week I talked with a friend of mine that graduated last semester, my little brother (girl problems), and my adopted Grandma. I don't know why I get nervous calling people up because the conversations are always fine. It felt good to have more real interaction with people than just facebook or none at all.