Transitioning into adulthood

Moving out of your parent’s house is probably good as long as you can afford it. Being the parent of a couple of young adults who have come home for the summer or whatever, I recognize it’s difficult for the young person. It’s difficult for the parents, too. Good luck in finding a job.

I think it’s easy to get in that mindset of Molly Mormon and Peter Priesthood only looking for each other. This is exacerbated by the LDS marriage culture, where a RM is expected to be married within months of returning. My own daughter suffers from the same thing, she is a graduate of BYU and is in grad school attending a YSA ward. I also live in the east and served a mission (although a bit later because I’m a convert). I was 26 when I got home from my mission and married when I was 30. It just took time, albeit we were at the time both TBM. I think you might be surprised at how many people your age have unorthodox leanings, they just hide it very well and you need to get to know them. They’re probably thinking the same thing about you – that you don’t want them because they’re too unorthodox. I’m just beginning to realize a guy who I’ve known for 25 years is a lot more unorthodox than I ever imagined – after a discussion about gay marriage (civil marriage vs. religious marriage).

Hang in there – lIfe is a highway, I wanna drive it all night long!

My oldest daughter is in somewhat of a similar place. However, she is the more orthodox with the less orthodox family, her concern is if she will find someone who will be comfortable with that dynamic. She too has graduated from the Lord’s University in Provo, she lived nearby us for a couple of years then was transferred to the midwest. She has remained connected to the YA wards, and has other related church plans, but she also has coworker friends that she spends time with.

One thing she has done, while waiting for Mr. Right, is fill her life with hobbies and interests. She doesn’t wait for him, she goes out and is who she is, and hopes their paths will cross someday.

You like liberal and unorthodox. Those men do exist.

I am fairly liberal and fairly unorthodox. I exist. The Church also doesn’t really like me to exist, but hey what can you do?

Am working on being able to get married in temple though.

Haha looking back at this post and laughing now. After I moved to NC, I immediately started dating a guy, broke up, got back together, and now have been married for almost a year. Interesting how things worked out. He struggled a little with some of my disbeliefs but we were able to work through them and get to a place where I felt comfortable going to the temple. But as far as being liberal, he’s a Mexican that came here illegally with his parents as a child and blessed through Obama’s DACA laws so you can imagine what his current thoughts are on the current political climate of the country.

Thanks for the follow-up. I as a young single adult felt like being in a relationship would validate me … and I wondered if it not happening was some sign of something wrong. It is an interesting age.

I’m in between jobs and when I have nothing to do I tend to slip back into depression which I’ve dealt with for many years. I try to tell myself that I’m going to do positive things with my time off and then end up spending the day on Netflix rather than filling out job applications of getting ready for my move. What do you do when you have too much free time on your hands and are struggling to be motivated to do much of anything?

Strange how that is — the more free time you have, the less productive you are! I have had to grapple with that problem because I teach online a lot, and so I wake up many days with no appointments from dawn until midnight. Those days are the least productive for me if I don’t impose discipline.

Here is how I do it — I schedule something in the middle of the day — lunch with someone, meet me wife at lunchtime, a doctor’s appointment, a service project, SOMETHING to put an anchor in my day. That creates a kind of healthy pressure to get things done until the appointment.

Another thing, write out a personal mission statement. Stephen R Covey suggests you have one and I do have one. Something that really motivates you about the kind of person you want to be rememered as. Here is a site on it.

https://msb.franklincovey.com/” class=”bbcode_url”>https://msb.franklincovey.com/

On the weekend, or when bored in church, pull it out and plan how you ‘re going to achieve the mission by putting blocks of time in your schedule when you’ll pursue that mission. For me, it’s “to lead others to greater truth, competence, and self-reliance” and then I have specific attributes I want to develop in each of my roles as father, community leader, employee and husband. I have projects in which I further that mission, and have to make sure I am working at it each week. Having that vision of what you want to become can motivate you to assign blocks of time in the week to those activities. And that will make your other time productive. If your schedule is wide open, then do it early in the week rather than later, and FEEL GOOD ALL WEEK. Just make sure that mission statement really motivates you, and the site above will help you put your finger on what lights your fire.

Also, do your job search time off site. Maybe at the local library or take your laptop to Starbucks. The act of getting out of your house will help you stay focused and away from Forensic Files, Criminal Minds, Wentworth, Person of Interest, Hawaii Five-O, Youtube, and a ton of other shows that have distracted me over the last year at various times if I don’t impose self-discipline.

I’ve been thinking about that conversation a lot lately. Am I less likely to find someone because I am more unorthodox? That kind of got to me. I feel like I need to find someone that is a little more liberal but still connected to the church enough to get married in the temple because that is still what I want despite my uncertainties about the temple. A person like that can be difficult to find.

It’s not easy finding the right person even when you remove the church restriction! The wider the options the easier it is. I think it’s a bit harder to find a mate when the criteria is unorthodox because a) people don’t want to admit it at church and b) many of those people often aren’t coming to church anymore. So you don’t know where to find them.

My advice is to use an online dating site for LDS people where you can state your unorthodox beliefs and get it in front of a wider audience. That’s what I would do. People who want orthodoxy will opt out and people who want someone unorthodox will opt-in.

Hope that helps..

SD