I have gotten into an awful habit of unintentionally complaining. When I was mindful enough to notice, I might catch myself complaining about other people not meeting my expectations. It is also not uncommon for me to complain about not being able to get on top of my health or whatever new trail I am facing - how I'm trying to be proactive and make good choices but instead feel like I've taken two steps back. Not difficult to complain about that frustration! This habit is so bad that I can be found complaining about what I anticipate may happen even before I give people a chance to do something different.
My bad habits started to come to light in several ways. As I was reading a couple books (The Happiness Project and The Power of The Other) I observed that while teaching concepts of improving happiness and leadership, these authors also focused on an opposite perspective of pessimism and listed some negative characteristics that I had just become aware of having. I began to wonder if my negative tendencies were disrupting my happiness, and maybe even more importantly, the happiness of those around me. Then one day, my husband was acting funny - apologizing for things he didn't need to apologize for and acting like he was putting me out, so to speak. These little seeds of doubt were annoying, honestly, and I called him out on it. Then later when I sat to think about this strange behavior of his, I connected some dots and realized that he was probably trying to compensate for my timely pessimism.
A couple weeks ago, as Scott and I studied the Come Follow Me lesson for that week, the lesson suggested we could read a talk to ponder more about Mary and Martha. It was in reading this talk that I could finally put a name to this weakness, a spiritual muscle of mine that had atrophied - charity.
It seriously seems like all signs have been pointing with a neon outline to my weakness lately. All these promptings reminded me of a scripture in the Book of Mormon. In the book of Ether, Moroni receives some instruction from the Lord that teaches that character weakness is an essential part of life, and could even be considered a gift from God, to help us choose humility and look to Him. These innate, or potentially acquired, weaknesses also give us opportunities to become better, more Christlike (a.k.a repentance), to demonstrate faith, and grow in spiritual maturity.
27 And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
The best comparison I've heard with this scripture came from a local mental health professional a few months ago in church. He quoted this scripture and said these weaknesses we have are like big boulders in our lives, and all that Heavenly Father asks of us is to push on it a little every day. The boulder may move an inch or a mile over our lifetimes, or potentially not move at all. But if we consistently push every day (maybe some days just lay next to the boulders when we are too weak to push), over time we will become physically or mentally stronger because of the exercise.
Over the next few months I'm going to workout my charity muscle and make charity the focus of my personal study. Maybe I'll even keep a journal of my experiments implementing what I learn, so I can recognize patterns and attempt to turn around these bad habits and be kinder to family, friends, strangers, and even myself.
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