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I saw the following quote today and want to pass it along to everyone here: Quote:Spending energy and time trying to be someone you are not is wasting the person you are.
I don’t want to discount repentance (change) and progression, so I would add a disclaimer about allowing yourself to grow into more than you are currently, but I agree completely with the main message of this quote.
I think a distinction can be made between changing who we are and bettering who we are. We should all want to better ourselves. But if we spend all our energy trying to change to someone we’re not, then we’re moving sideways, not forward. I like and agree with this concept more than the “fake it till you make it” idea that seems to have more traction in the church and especially on my mission.
Something that helped me was in a book I read on my mission by Elder Holland. I’m not sure if it’s idea originally or not but the book says “God calls us because of who we are, not in spite of it.”
I think understanding God wants us to be different can be a real blessing. The conformity stuff in the church is ridiculous at times and not what God’s plan was. Conformity and exact obedience was Satan’s plan.
God made us in unique shapes that won’t all fit in the same square hole.
I would agree. Repentance is about changing into someone who you are meant to be, not someone who you aren’t meant to be. I think bettering yourself, ie. ‘repentence’, ultimately leads to feeling better, whereas trying to be something your not only leads to frustration. Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk 2
The other side of this is how a person functions in the church. Over the last 7-8 years I haven’t been able to teach and if I was called to leadership couldn’t do it but I can be a clerk. It’s a necessary and useful job and I’m not expected to be religious. My sin drenched soul aside it’s a way for me to stay in. Amen, GB. A big part of it is being willing to go to a church leader and say: Quote:“I want to be involved, and right now I can do that if I can serve as ______________________”
– with as many possibilities given as possible. There are callings that most people can do, and, if not, it is possible to create assignments for people – especially in areas that involve service. Owning our own membership is harder than letting it own us, but it can be a very rewarding process.
Quote:“Spending energy and time trying to be someone you are not is wasting the person you are.”
What I find interesting about this quote is that sometimes as a Mormon I feel pressured to not be myself.
Quote:What I find interesting about this quote is that sometimes as a Mormon I feel pressured to not be myself.
Yup, it happens quite a bit – but it is common to just about every person and organization on earth, not just ours. I wish it didn’t exist in ours, but ours is made up of people who are not immune from crap like creating unrealistic expectations – and our culture has created far too many unrealistic expectations.
I feel our culture has perfected this. I am living the “fake it till you make it” life and see no end until something gives. And that time is getting near. It wasn’t always that way for me. For years I had to be a member at arms length because I could see that once I was all in my own choices and my time was theirs. I finally let my guard down and it happened as expected. I’m now living my live in a parallel universe controlled by the church. I’m always out of body watching time pass by. I’m on shore watching me in a canoe go straight downstream at somebody else’s control. It’s a helpless feeling. Just to put it out there, there has never been any official statement from any leader I have ever found that uses the term “fake it ’til you make it” – or even implies that message. That is a phrase that an anti-Mormon group coined to describe the idea that expressing a testimony helps build a testimony – and those two concepts are radically different from each other. Seriously, they are radically different concepts. /end of soapbox rant
Old-Timer wrote:Just to put it out there, there has never been any official statement from any leader I have ever found that uses the term “fake it ’til you make it” – or even implies that message. That is a phrase that an anti-Mormon group coined to describe the idea that expressing a testimony helps build a testimony – and those two concepts are radically different from each other. Seriously, they are radically different concepts.
/end of soapbox rant
Sorry Ray. I just took that term and identified with it and expressed what it meant to me. I never heard it before and didn’t mean to promote any anti-Mormon ideals. Crap, I just can’t get things right.
Old-Timer wrote:Just to put it out there, there has never been any official statement from any leader I have ever found that uses the term “fake it ’til you make it” – or even implies that message. That is a phrase that an anti-Mormon group coined to describe the idea that expressing a testimony helps build a testimony – and those two concepts are radically different from each other. Seriously, they are radically different concepts.
/end of soapbox rant
It might not be an official statement from the top leadership but I have heard it many times, especially with missionaries. Many don’t subscribe to that but there are some just like some mission presidents really do care about the numbers more than others. It makes me think about Elder Holland’s talk about how those without a testimony can lean on his until they get their own. I loved his talk and used it recently in a speaking assignment but I really don’t think that concept works in the long run and maybe not so much in the short run.
It’s fine, Kipper. It’s used so much now that most people have no idea how it started. Really, it’s cool. Don’t worry about it – not at all.
“Fake it till you make it” was the theme of a whole zone conference on my mission 3-4 years ago. It was repeatedly taught by the MP, APs, ZLs, DLs, etc. Is funny you quote elder Holland because it was reading a book he authored on my mission that said “god calls us because of who we are not in spite of it” that made me give up on fake it till you make it. I realized that if it was true god wanted me there then he wanted ME there. Not a carbon copy of someone else. So I focused on bettering who I was instead of changing it. I met many people who I helped because of my unorthodoxy and my life experiences. Not necessarily baptized or reactivated… But helped.
That is SO sad to know (about your mission experience with that phrase), but, unfortunately, not surprising. That is SO good to know about how you approached things, instead.
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