Blaming Yourself for Life's Trials

I was reading the March Ensign last night and came across a great article by Larry Richman entitled "Learning Through Life's Trials".

Some of my favorite lines from the article are: "When I anguish over difficulties, the experiences only serve to weigh me down. But remembering that these trials are part of the great plan of happiness helps me see them as opportunities to learn and grow." "We shouted for joy at the chance to participate in this plan of happiness (Alma 42:8, 16). Here on earth there is a lot of joy, but there are also times of trial, misfortune, and grief."

Origins of Adversity-

"Much suffering comes from sin and other trials come as a result from unwise choices (ie. financial debt). Other challenges come as a natural result of mortality and the world we live in (ie. age, illness, or injury)."

Degree of Fault for Problems in Life-

"As mortals we try to assign fault for every situation. Often we judge ourselves harshly, concluding that problems occur because of something we did wrong or because we failed to do something to prevent them. As we consider the degree of our personal fault for the tribulations in our lives, it may be helpful to think of a continuum with sin at one end and adversity at the other. Our degree of fault is high at the end of the spectrum marked as sin. We should accept responsibility for problems caused by sin by repenting and continually striving to do better. However, as we continue down the spectrum, our fault drops to zero at the end marked by adversity, where we may bear no responsibility at all. These trials may come to us regardless of any conscious action on our part. If we blame ourselves for things that are not our fault, we make a bad situation worse by seeing ourselves as bad people who deserve bad things. It is difficult to judge our level of responsibility for problems that fall between these two ends of the spectrum. In these cases, it may be unproductive to try to establish blame because it may cause us to lose focus on the very reason for the trial."

Are you settling for not enough of second best?

I recently received an email from my sister who lives in San Francisco. She asked me if I had a friend named Mike Kruckenberg. The question took my mind back about a decade and a half ago when I was attending Ricks College. Mike and I met in our college ward. He was the executive secretary and I was the sunday school president, so we attended PEC meetings together. We also had a chemistry class together. I was very impressed with his goodness and we both liked to joke around and became good friends. I haven't heard from him in over 10 years, so I thought I might google him and find out where he is. The result of that search was his blog. There was a particular entry he made on May 25, 2006 that I really liked and want to share here today.

" 'Are you getting what's important or not enough of second best?' - I love this phrase from David Wilcox in "Eye of the Hurricane" from "How did you find me Here?" Well I'm not sure if love is the right word, but its a phrase that I've thought about many times over the year:

When you lay your dream to rest

You can get what's second best

But it's hard to get enough

The question raises itself every now and then if I spend more of my time on what's most important, or if I'm in an endless struggle to get enough of second best. Its been more than 15 years ago that david wrote those words and I've been wondering about it ever since. My guess is that when you really get down to the core of people there are only a few things that are really important enough to be first. The rest is stuff we can never get enough of, we spend a lot of time and energy trying to get, we'll never be completely satisfied with, and as time passes we'll realize that it just wasn't that important. I'm not sure how good I am at prioritizing things, but I figure it's a good sign to at least be asking the question. Right?"

This entry by Mike makes me think of the scripture in the Book of Nephi and in the Book of Matthew that says, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven , where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (3 Nephi 13:19-21)