Finding Balance, Part 3: Patience and Contentment

Today, I'll finish up the discussion on Finding Balance by addressing two final elements to a balanced life: patience and contentment. (See part one and part two of this discussion.)



* Be Patient. We started our discussion last week by writing down all the things we are doing, want to be doing, or should be doing with our lives. I do this exercise every so often as I try to find the right balance in my own life. It can be discouraging to look at a huge list and realize all the things you're not doing or can't do because of the many other good things that fill your time.



That's why it's important to be patient. Wilford Woodruff counseled, “Do not be discouraged because you cannot learn all at once; learn one thing at a time, learn it well, and treasure it up, then learn another truth and treasure that up, and in a few years you will have a great store of useful knowledge which will not only be a great blessing to yourselves and your children, but to your fellow men” (The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G. Homer Durham [1946], 269).



One of the reasons New Year's Resolutions often fail is that too many of us try to change everything all at once. We try to exercise, stop criticizing, wake up early, learn a new hobby, and get out of debt all at the same time. After a few weeks, our brains are tired and we start to give up.



Instead of changing everything all at once, try focusing on a few things at a time. Perhaps you want to spend three months working on being more consistent with housework. After that, you could spend a few months focusing on learning how to use your camera better or being a better cook, and so on.



We also need to keep in mind that progress is not a continuous climb. Often, we take two steps forward and one step back. We try to incorporate many new habits and then just a few tend to stick. We do really well one day and have trouble the next. This a normal part of life, and one of the reasons patience is so important.



* Tiny Bites here and there add up.

Last January, I’d had my new camera for two months and I still didn’t know how to use it. I was overwhelmed by all the buttons and dials and had no clue what an F-stop was. I was discouraged that I wasn't making any progress, but I didn't have much time to devote to figuring it all out. I decided that while I couldn't learn everything as fast as I wanted, I could do a little bit at a time. I set aside an hour a week to do a photo shoot, and put books on hold at the library and read when I had spare time. I did about one shoot a week until Katie was born, and then averaged one or two a month for the rest of the year. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough -- I know I'm not the most amazing photographer (yet), but I'm improving, I know my camera pretty well, and I'm able to capture some lovely images. And I haven't neglected my more important responsibilities to pursue this goal.

(my friend Natalie's little one -- we took a few photos after the mother's group discussion)

In our instant-gratification world, it's hard to be patient with our progress sometimes. It's easy to feel that we'll never have enough time to do it all -- and we won't! But we can fit in more than we realize, if we're willing to be patient. My friend Courtney pointed out that she fits a lot into her life -- from baking bread to raising four little kids -- but most of the things she's doing now she added a little at a time over the course of years. She said that she's amazed at how much more she's able to do now than even three years ago.



* Don’t compare. One of the keys to finding contentment with our lives and staying in balance is to understand that our situations are different from those around us. In this age of Facebook and blogs, it's easy to see all the good things other people are doing with their lives. But usually? It's only the good things you are seeing. As my sister-in-law Diane put it, "It's like the never-ending Christmas letter!" Most people blog or Facebook their triumphs, not their despair and discouragement. If we can recognize that, we can cheer on others without worrying about the ways our own lives seem to fall short.



The key word is "seem." Everyone else fits more into their lives, we think. They go on more vacations, spend more time doing wonderful activities with their kids, make cool birthday cakes, sew matching clothes, make their own chocolates, throw amazing parties, raise cuter kids, help in more causes, decorate their house better, have cooler friends, a cleaner house, better-looking hair, more amazing talents, and so on.



What we don't realize is that we make assumptions based on a tiny slice of someone's life. My friend Lindsay pointed out that she does make matching outfits for her girls -- about once a year, for pictures -- and that she does make cute birthday cakes -- three times a year. It doesn't consume her whole life. And yet, with things like that, we make automatic assumptions. "She's always doing this or that," we think, "I'm not good enough."



We're also much harder on ourselves than we are on others. We fail to recognize the things we do that are amazing and wonderful. We almost always compare to people who are better at a skill than we are. I discount my photography skills, for instance, because I follow some amazing photography blogs and I see stunning work that outshines my own. And yet, at the same time, if I were to have seen someone last year at the level I'm at now, I would have been impressed.



We also have different talents and abilities. Tiffany is one of my friends who has an amazing cooking talent. She's lived in Sweden, in Israel, and in New York and she's embraced the foods of each place. She creates wonderful meals and enjoys doing it. By contrast, I'm just an okay cook. It would be easy to think, "If I just had more time, I'd be better at this too," but it's not true. If I had more time, I probably wouldn't spend much of it on improving my cooking ability. I'd spend it on something I enjoy more.



We can't develop every hobby. We can't scrapbook, run, paint, craft, cook, blog, read, write, sew, create, plan, organize, and so on, or we'd be neglecting the more important responsibilities in our lives. Sometimes, we have to realize, "that's not for me," or even "that's not for me at this stage in my life." I think a few focused hobbies are easier to keep in balance than trying to do a little of everything.



We're also at different stages of life with different responsibilities. The balance in my life with eight kids and a busy husband will look different than the balance in someone else's life. I'm tempted sometimes to think I must have the least amount of time for extras, and while that's true in some cases, in others, it's not. I have friends who deal with chronic illness, for example, and their balance has to include diminished energy. I know of others who deal with handicapped children or heavy Church responsibilities that keep them much busier than eight kids would.



Comparing is such a insidious habit. Sometimes when we start comparing, it moves on to criticism. We might feel jealous and start to tell ourselves, "Well, she's probably neglecting her kids in order to do that," or something similar.



I'm trying to teach my children that they are not competing with each other. I love that Lillian plays the violin, Joey takes electronics apart, Michael is a comic, Allison is adventurous, Sarah is artistic, Eliza does complex puzzles, Harmony loves books, and Katie is goofy. I wouldn't expect or want my kids all to be the same, nor would I put one of them down because they do things differently than another.



Can't we be happy for other people's talents and achievements without worrying about whether our own are good enough? I love this quote from Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin:

Let me cite a hypothetical example of a dear sister in any ward, the one who has perfect children who never cause a disturbance in church. She is the one working on her 20th generation in her family history, keeps an immaculate home, has memorized the book of Mark, and makes wool sweaters for the orphaned children in Romania. No disrespect, of course, intended for any of these worthy goals. Now, when you get tempted to throw your hands in the air and give up because of this dear sister, please remember you’re not competing with her any more than I’m competing with the members of the Quorum of the Twelve in winning a 50-yard dash.

* Be Grateful. When I focus on my blessings and what I'm able to fit into my full and busy life, I feel content. When I start adding up what I'm not doing or what I wish I could be doing, that's when frustration and discouragement set in.





Finding balance in life is a challenge in this modern, fast-paced world, but it is possible.





Now that I've completed the three parts to the discussion, what do you have to add? How do you find balance? How do you keep from comparing yourself to others or being impatient? What have you had to cut out of your life? What have you kept in and why?

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The Race for Number One

"Number One" was a phrase my father -- and for that matter, my mother -- repeated time and time again. It was a phrase spoken by my parents' friends and their friends' children . . . In the culture of my childhood, being best was everything. It was the goal that drove us, the motivation that gave life meaning. And if, by chance or fate or the blessings of a generous universe, you were a child in whom talent was evident, Number One became your mantra. It became mine.

How far would you push your child to be the best? I recently finished a book called Lang Lang: Journey of a Thousand Miles. I found it very moving and deeply disturbing. In it, Lang Lang, a gifted pianist from China, describes his childhood and the pressure on him to become number one, to be ranked first in every competition, to win, to be the best, not just in his city or in China, but in the whole world. His parents devote their whole lives to this pursuit. And Lang Lang, in the end, fulfills their dreams, winning a scholarship to study in the United States, playing in Carnegie Hall and with all the major orchestras. He even convinces a skeptical Chinese audience (who didn't understand why he hadn't been entering competitions since he went to the U.S.) that he was worthy of their adulation in a tour with the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Reading the book made me feel the pressure on Lang Lang keenly. When he won, I felt excitement and relief. When he had setbacks, I worried for him and all his family had invested in his future. But mostly, I read in astonishment at the lengths his parents went to ensure his success. It wasn't enough that he practiced seven hours or more a day from the time he was four or five years old. Or that he was celebrated in his own city as a child prodigy. No, his father needed him to be the best in the whole world, so he quit his job, took Lang Lang away from his mother at the age of nine, and went to Beijing to live in a slum and try to secure entry into a prestigious school there. A few months later, Lang Lang's new Beijing teacher tells him she will no longer teach him, that he has no talent. The next day, Lang returns home from school to find his dad enraged.

His screaming only got louder, more hysterical. "I gave up my job for you! I gave up my life! Your mother works and starves for you, everyone depends on you, and you're late, you're fired by this teacher, you're not practicing, and you don't do what I tell you to do. There's no reason for you to live. Only death will solve this problem. Die now rather than live in shame! It will be better for both of us. First you die, then I die."

For the first time in my life, I felt a deep hatred for my father. I began cursing him.

"Take these pills!" he said, handing me a bottle of pills I later learned were strong antibiotics. "Swallow all thirty pills right now. Everything will be over and you will be dead."

I felt shocked, dismayed, flabbergasted -- how can winning mean so much to this family, this culture? Lang Lang mentions several times that it's partly the one-child policy in China. Everything -- all a family's hopes and dreams -- rests on the success or failure of their one and only child. The Cultural Revolution also shares some blame. Both of Lang Lang's parents had to give up their dreams in the chaos and shifting policies of the 1960s in China.

I'm grateful that our culture is not quite so intense. But still, I think we all struggle with the question of how much to push and how much to let go, how much to involve our children and how much to let them be. Free time or structured activities? Dance or gymnastics? Piano or violin? Karate or soccer? Obviously, none of us is a crazed lunatic pursuing single-mindedly our child's success at the expense of their stability, but I think we all sometimes buy into the notion that we need to make our children really good at something -- anything -- to make them important or great.

I would venture to guess that when asked, most parents would say that they want their kids to be happy, well-rounded, balanced individuals. But secretly, don't we all harbor great desires to see our children excel beyond our wildest dreams? Why couldn't OUR child be the next Michael Phelphs, the next Mozart, the next President? When our child shows an interest in music or sports or math or whatever, of course we involve our children in classes or programs designed to nurture that talent. But don't we also wonder if we're doing enough? Are we holding our children back from their brilliant future if we're not pushing them every moment? Did we miss some critical period by not teaching our two-year-old sign language, by not playing classical music in the womb, by not signing our baby up for swimming lessons? Have we destroyed their future as a concert pianist if our children don't learn the piano by the age of three?

The truth is, I don't want my children to be ordinary. I don't consider myself ordinary; why should they be? But ultimately, my real desires for them don't have anything to do with success the way the world measures it. The pursuit of power, wealth, position, or acclaim has little meaning for me. My deepest desire for my children is that they will grow up with faith in God. I want them to develop an understanding that God has a place and a purpose for them.

I want them to realize that lives of service and love will bring them more happiness and joy than any trophy or award or ranking. I want my children to be light-bringers, to lift and brighten others by their actions and words. I want them to experience the feeling of helping someone who's in despair. I want them to cry with a friend who's had a disappointing day. I want them to be a friend to someone who's lonely. I want them to use their talents to bless others, not to seek glory or fame for themselves. If glory and fame come, fine, but I don't want my children to ever measure their success based on its presence or absence.

There is something quite evil in the idea that we are only good enough when we are better than someone else, in the pursuit of ranking and basing our worth on how we compare to others. I'm not saying we shouldn't excel, or that we shouldn't aim high and develop our talents; on the contrary, our talents can bless the lives of others. Who among us hasn't been touched by a great piece of music, performed by masters? Or been inspired by the performance of a great athlete?

What is evil is not the desire to become great at something, it's the desire to be better than everyone else. It's the constant comparison, the ranking, and the pride. It reminds me of what C.S. Lewis once said, “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. . . It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.” (Mere Christianity). In the words of Ezra Taft Benson, "the proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough. Pride is ugly. It says, 'If you succeed, I am a failure.' "

The problem with basing our worth on being better than someone else is that we buy into a lie. I taught special education students for over a year before my first child was born. In the contests of life, my students would never be ranked among the best or the brightest. Most of them were dismal athletes, poor musicians, and limited scholars. And yet, in their presence, I was humbled. I always felt as if I was in the presence of some of God's greatest children. Their smiles and triumphs brought joy; some of their challenges and obsessions brought humor. You don't have to be the best at anything to bring light into the world.

So ultimately, while I want my children to enjoy sports, play an instrument, and be intelligent scholars, to reach for their dreams and achieve wonderful things, I want them most of all to see other people as precious children of God. I want them to rejoice when others succeed and to celebrate the reality that God has given all of us talents and abilities and when we use them on behalf of others, then we are truly great.

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