One of the gospel’s basic tenets is that life is not a
competition. We all have the same potential, and therefore we are supposed to help each
other reach that potential, supposed to rejoice when someone else reaches life
goals that we have not yet reached, supposed to not get annoyed when other
people else achieve things that we want, supposed to not hate anyone for living
the life we feel that we deserve.
I don’t know about
you guys, but sometimes I do get annoyed. Sometimes I do hate people for being
better than me. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Even though we know
we’re not supposed to covet our neighbor’s anything, sometimes it’s still so
hard to not get bitter. And I think it stems back, at least in part, to this
idea that someone else’s joys and successes are somehow a reflection of our own
self-worth.
For example: Someone else gets a prestigious internship, someone
else gets asked on four dates a week, someone else takes 18 difficult credits
and still manages to pass them all, someone else just off their mission gets
engaged – and I get jealous, I get bitter, I get oh so insecure. I wonder: What’s
wrong with me that I’m not like that? Am I not as good as them? Not as
attractive? Intelligent? Competent? Interesting? Fun? Do I not put as much
effort into being my best self? Why should fate favor them and not me? Doesn’t
God want me to have joy? Then what am I doing wrong?
Does any of this sound familiar?
I know I’m not the only one out there who thinks like this. Even
though we know that these sorts of things are not what the gospel teaches, even
though we know exactly what cliché gospel truths this line of thinking goes
against, that does not make it easy to just stop these emotions from happening.
There is a difference between knowing and believing, and making that switch
from intellectual to emotional can be scary. It means trusting in God’s view of
us and letting go of a lifetime of accumulated assumptions about our tentative place
in this world, and our instinct warns us that if we let go, we will fall.
Remember Peter, though, trying to be like Jesus and walk on
water? He looked down at the waves – and started to sink. He fell. But the
Savior heard his cry for help, and Peter did not drown.
Neither will the Savior let us drown. As we let go of our
beliefs about our worth, He will reach out and raise our thoughts up to a place
where we no longer feel as if we are drowning. And He will replace our insecurities with the
truth about His love. Because it’s not enough to know that a belief is
incorrect; to get it to leave our hearts, we must replace it with the truth (see Isaiah 55:9).
So what is the truth about our worth?
Someone else’s joy
has no reflection on my worth or my potential. If someone younger than me gets
married, does that mean I’m doing something wrong in my life to not be
progressing along in the Lord’s Plan of Salvation the way I want to be?
No. It means that God has a different plan for my life. Why?
Because I’m a different person than those people I’m comparing myself to. Of
course things are happening in my life at a different time than in other
people’s lives – because God loves my individuality. He has prepared a plan for
my life that caters to what I, Miriam Jones, need. Not what my friends, my
family, my classmates, or anybody else in this world needs, but what I, Miriam
Jones, with my unique set of strengths and challenges, need. More than
anything, God wants me to grow closer to Him through becoming more like Him.
And because He understands me (see Alma 7:11-13), He knows what I need and when I need it, and He is so
good at providing it – because I am His daughter, and He loves me.
And, lately, as I’ve worked to understand how God views me I
have discovered a depth inside of me that, in certain recent attempts to fit
in, I had started to neglect.
I’ve rediscovered my love for sincerity, for emotional writing,
for long bike rides and wading in rivers, for upbeat music and dance parties, for
deep discussions about the nature of humanity and life and politics and how it
all ties into what the Savior teaches, for my family’s smart-alecky sense of
humor and how it’s so much like mine.
I have discovered how alive I feel when I focus on using my talents, my strengths, my personality
to brighten my life and that of those around me.
And I’ve discovered that as I do this, I feel so connected
to everyone around me. Everyone is connected, but sometimes we focus so much on
beating other people in this game called life that we forget to let our hearts feel this connection. But it’s as I
focus on connecting with God and with others that I also feel connected to my
own soul. I see my worth as others help me see it, as I discover it by doing
those things that I love, as God helps what I know align more closely with what
I believe, and as I help others see their own worth. Keeping connected with
God, myself, and others – all three in an increasingly perfect balance – helps me
feel connected to the depths that exist inside of me, help me feel alive and so
sure of who I have the potential to become.
And as I feel the depth of my worth and my potential, I can
start to see the same things inside of everyone else. I see unexpected
strengths in people I had written off. I see unexpected trials in people I had
labelled as always happy and easy-going. I see charity inside of people I’d
never bothered to talk to. Suddenly it’s easier to interact with people and let
the depths inside of them draw out the depths inside of me. Suddenly I feel so
much love, both for myself and for all those I interact with. Suddenly, I start
to understand how God feels about His precious sparrows.
