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You know, I’ve heard over and over again that the gospel should make you happy. It’s the object and design of our existence. I don’t get it. Following the gospel has left me with:
1. A feeling of obligation I should stay with a marriage that could have been anulled.
2. Guilt when people tell me I should be invested one to three saturdays a month moving people.
3. Performing janitorial services gratis — something I detest since I have a hard enough time doing it in my own home.
4. Paying out 3000-13000 a year to the church at different times in my lifetime — only to find they won’t fund our local programs to make them decent.
5. Home teaching — visitign people who most of the time, don’t want to see me.
6. Endless meetings with the same content I’ve heard over and over again.
7. Ostracization and isolation from leaders when I don’t take on callings they want me to accept.
I could go on, but I’m at the point today where I question how the LDS experience can make people happy. Hopefully this is just a bump in the trail, as I don’t feel this way all the time. How can all these things be a “recipe for happiness”?
It isn’t for lots of people – but it really is for lots of other people, especially those who make adaptations and set their own boundaries and parameters. There is nothing that will work for everyone, except gaining internal peace and following one’s conscience – and even that isn’t possible to the same degree for everyone.
Life is a mess and always will be a mess to some degree. The key is learning how to limit the mess to an acceptable level and learning to let go of the messiness that will never be eliminated.
That is FAR easier said than done for most people and even harder for some people, especially those whose “messiness” contrasts starkly from the messiness of most others in their spheres of life. Being different is hard, and trying to be the same is even harder in the long run.
My only advice is what I repeat a lot, in one way or another:
Quote:You were created as an original. Don’t become a copy.
That is possible in the LDS Church, but it doesn’t happen naturally – just as it doesn’t happen naturally in life. Some have to leave, but it absolutely isn’t the best option for many others.
Finally, “there must needs be opposition in ALL things” would include religion, right? It’s hard to accept that, but I think it’s a correct principle.
The church would have you believe that is works for everyone though. That is the problem — it doesn’t. I would submit that “it’s not that simple”. I can point to lots of General Conference talks that state explicitly that faithfulness and orthoprax living do NOT guarantee ease or luxury or lack of trial or a life of peaches, cream and eternal sunshine – and I don’t know if I can find one that says living the standards of the Church will result in ease or luxury or lack of trial. Lots of them talk about the blessings of doing so, but that doesn’t mean “it works for everyone” in a way that means they will be happy all the time. President Monson, especially, has talked multiple times about pioneers and how brutal their lives were – and how faith and service help people find meaning in terrible circumstances.
I agree that Pollyanna-ism is a HUGE problem in the Church, but I just don’t see “the Church” teaching that we can be happy all the time and that “it works for everyone” in that way. If the church can not bring you some level of peace and happiness then what is the point of even participating? I agree, Cadence – and I believe that an acceptable level can vary from individual to individual. Quote:Cadence you wrote,
If the church can not bring you some level of peace and happiness then what is the point of even participating?
On a singular level that is a wise question, what I read in SD’s OP is the problem of his familial connections. If he were not connected to them, I think he would have made the choice he presently desires and it would be complete release of the church. His wrestle comes from kids he loves, and responsibilities he feels – that makes it harder.
It is a challenge I have no answer for.
SilentDawning wrote:The church would have you believe that is works for everyone though. That is the problem — it doesn’t.
When the church does so it contradicts its own teachings. There are lots of statements on our quotes thread that shows that God uses many teachings and philosophies in this life to brig people along.
As to your happiness in the church… I’m really sorry it’s so painful.
LeGrand Richards apparently said (in his biography):
“If you are unhappy with the church, you should find one where you will be happy.”
I’ve not yet seen the full context for this quote yet so am not sure how to take it. Apparently it’s in his biography, in the chapter about being a mission president.
I might not agree with it if the quote really means “with” the church (not “in” the church).
I still see a time when my discontent in/with the church leads me to find one where I am more happy. It’s easier for me though. My wife left the church years ago. There is no expectation for me to go to any church at all.
If, for the sake of your marriage, you feel activity is essential (and my wife did for many years even when she wanted to leave) then that’s an entirely different matter. In that scenario it’s about trying to find ways to be happy “in” the church even if there are times you’re not happy “with” it.
Hopefully we can support you in either: leaving or staying and finding peace while doing so.
I’m of the mind you don’t even have to be part of a church to be happy. there are plenty of places you can serve others that have nothing to do with the church, with ideology, etcetera. I feel very much like you do, SD, although not to the same extent with my husband. I don’t believe my leaving the church would destroy my marriage. My husband would be sad, but he’d understand and love me just the same. In fact, I think my marriage would be better in some ways because I’d be so much happier outside the church. For now, I’m staying to make everyone else (DH and kids) happy. I know you’ll understand when I say that’s only a matter of how much longer I keep it up. Having friends at church that I really like helps somewhat. Human tendency ever to seek further perfection: biological dichotomy results in contradictions that produce existential needs whose various resolutions determine passions and strivings, which are incessant and inherently unquenchable. This is scientifically proven by research and evidence. So the question is
What are
your passions and strivings?Not joes or Nancy’s. There is no book or person that can dictate that(or should). Forgotten_Charity wrote:Human tendency ever to seek further perfection: biological dichotomy results in contradictions that produce existential needs whose various resolutions determine passions and strivings, which are incessant and inherently unquenchable.
You might need to translate this one FC….
I think it means
We are always seeking perfection. Differences in the biology of men and women (biological dichotomy?] produce conflicts that lead to individual needs. These individual needs lead us to strive for certain goals. These needs are ever-present and never satisfied.
Not sure what you mean by biological dichotomy though. Perhaps it means the different between right brain and left brain?
SilentDawning wrote:Forgotten_Charity wrote:Human tendency ever to seek further perfection: biological dichotomy results in contradictions that produce existential needs whose various resolutions determine passions and strivings, which are incessant and inherently unquenchable.
You might need to translate this one FC….
I think it means
We are always seeking perfection. Differences in the biology of men and women (biological dichotomy?] produce conflicts that lead to individual needs. These individual needs lead us to strive for certain goals. These needs are ever-present and never satisfied.
Not sure what you mean by biological dichotomy though. Perhaps it means the different between right brain and left brain?
Yes I am sorry SD. My fault for not being clearer. The consciousness and consciousness of self and self identity give rise to unending pursuit to try to arrive at a dedication of truth knowledge and love of all things, or rather all
Things the self actualized yearns to know or love. However the dichotomy results because the inherent desired biological goal of self actualization and consciousness needs can never arrive at its goal. The goal is always out of reach.
The real tragedy of the spiritual and biological needs to know all that is worth knowing to the self actualizing self and identity and loving that which is worth loving trying to objectively find the answer to reach a goal that can never be reached. It’s different sometimes for sexes but mostly it’s a individual thing. Culture, sex, family, childhood upbringing, all play a tremendous part for children between ages before 1 -9 years of life that is pretty much set for life in that person regardless of what they individually consciously choose later as their self actualization identity.
It’s set on stone from youth. It’s why people that grow up a certain way rebel when they get older and come back. Because ultimately their identity weather they want it or not is set in stone between those ages by their upbringing. They can consciously choose another identity but their former upbringing is ultimately always their reminding them in their conscious or unconscious what their identity really is. A paradox and that results in endless unforfilsble searching.
You see it a lot in cultures, family and religions without realizing why. Because people take that as a proclamation of their childhood raising as coming back to the “truth” . But thst really isn’t it. It’s the human spirit condition set I stone since youth.
The part about losing my non-member family is also disturbing….the one year waiting period if I got married civilly and could include my mother/father/brother and sister — my desire to be a good Mormon and get married in the temple from day 1 — has essentially left me without a sense of attachment to my non-member family. They were born-again Christians, who then became Evangelical, and even in the face of my Mormonism, were reasonably supportive and inclusive of me prior to marriage. Then you add the fact that the church would not compromise on letting people in North America get married civilly and in the temple on the same day – that changed things. I apologized for what I did to them at the time I was married — did so a couple years ago, but there isn’t that closeness anymore — after 18 years or relative estrangement, the apology didn’t seem to mean a lot. As a seasoned adult, I’m now seeing my life through a much different set of eyes. And all those people who encouraged me, and were present in the sealing room — none of them are part of my life right now. Yet my family could have been.
Recently, i got involved in a non-profit and it was very fulfilling for a while. I made mistakes as a leader. Not big ones, but mistakes anyway. I suppose the average person could overcome them but I’m so damn hard on myself — given my years of management training, degrees in so many different areas of business, and the fact that I tend to work myself so hard I eventually burn out and get depressed, isn’t helping.
I have a mentor, who the other day gave me career advice given the depressionalisation of the teaching profession in private education. he’s a retired CEO of a large, publicly traded company you would recognize, former golobal marketing consultant for yet another large consulting firm everyone would recognize.
He told me to set my sights on a position that is three levels above me right now. That provides a sense of meaning in my life, but I’m so concerned about my tendency to beat myself up over the inevitable mistakes leaders make as they build the layers of competency that you can’t rush. At the moment, I don’t see it as a source of peace — in fact, it has the potential to leave a legacy behind me with my kids as a mentally absent father — something I’m already trying to reverse.
Heap the guilt you feel about not being a toe the line Mormon at times, and its not a recipe for happiness.
I have read others posts here on StayLDS, and often, after I read them, I don’t feel I can comment. Their comments sometimes seem like problems that can’t be solved, and must be endured. But I usually try to write something meaningful, searching for that small bit of proactivity that can ease the pain and help improve their situation.
I’m going to try to spare you the same sense of “hopelessness” as you read this…and I think my first step today is to a) clean up my house and b) put together a self-reliance plan for my son. We had one for my daughter, and she has turned out beautifully.
I’m going to rely on Neelix from Star Trek Voyageur episode when he realizes the reason to “keep on keeping on” is the fact there are people on earth who would be devastated without you. And that person, right now, is my son.
SD, you said the following: Quote:I made mistakes as a leader. Not big ones, but mistakes anyway. I suppose the average person could overcome them but I’m so damn hard on myself — given my years of management training, degrees in so many different areas of business, and the fact that I tend to work myself so hard I eventually burn out and get depressed, isn’t helping.
Are you as hard on others, that may report to you, as you seem on yourself?
Life is a series of successes & mistakes. In my opinion, we are suppose to learn from both, make changes where necessary & move on. We all make mistakes. Some of them are rather BIG mistakes. Most of them we can learn from, make corrections, develop empathy for others & move on.
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