If I close my eyes and envision my family and self, I would see a well put together family sitting in a church pew ten minutes before the meeting starts. Our bellies are full of a homemade from scratch breakfast, and we're the perfect example of conscientious, faithful church-going, earth and health conscious people. Then I would open open my eyes and see my
real family. My real family probably still has banana and cheerios lurking about their faces. One or more of us may be half or fully asleep, and we are generally still preparing for church whenever Sacrament Meeting begins. This past winter, I actually kept Toddler in Pajamas to conserve time, warmth, and sleep until we got to church where I would change him into appropriate clothing.
Being a SAHM gives me a lot of room to think about how to improve myself, my life, and the life of my family. I have so many goals. So many things I want to be and accomplish. So much so that anything I do in the way of working towards this person I see myself becoming seems... inadequate? minuscule? Well, simply not enough anyway. I often identify my efforts as whims because even when I believe in something hardcore, fully committing seems so out of reach.
In psychology we discussed the concept of cognitive dissonance, which says that we want to keep all of our attitudes and beliefs in harmony. Whenever they are not in harmony, we changes our opinions to create harmony. I would like to extend this idea to our actions. I think we cannot possibly act on behalf of all the causes we find worthwhile so we change our opinions so that we are not uncomfortable with our lack of action. Or in the words of my psychology professor, we can only have so many priorities.
A friend and I were talking about the idea of perfection one day a few years back. He said that in his religion, he did not believe that we were capable of being perfect ever. He, therefore, did not understand why anyone would stress themselves out trying so hard to be just that. I told him that I do believe that we can become perfect in the life after this one. However, it is my belief, and the belief of my religion, that perfection is a concept we must work towards in both this life and the next to become like God.
That is why my life takes a different approach. I embrace my cognitive dissonance. I can't outrun it or even change my opinions enough to incorporate all I believe. I am choosing all of my causes. It's completely overwhelming, and it quite possibly means that I will never be great at any one thing. Most days end with me having contributed little to nothing to each cause- sometimes (most times) it can be quite discouraging. However, sometimes I have a day when it all comes together. Sometimes it all makes sense. Yesterday was one of those. All the little changes I've made in the last year came together, and I caught a glimpse of the person I want to be. Never quit setting goals, even when they seem impossible.
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