“All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, or our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves: “I’m just too weak,” or “I’m not cut out for better things.” Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement then take their toll.
Can we not appreciate that our very business in life is not to get ahead of others, but to get ahead of ourselves? To break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our todays, to bear our trials more beautifully than we ever dreamed we could, to give as we have never given, to do our work with more force and a finer finish than ever—this is the true idea: to get ahead of ourselves.” (“Yellow canaries with gray on their wings,” General Conference, April 1973)
This is from one of President Monson’s first conference addresses (at least as far as I can tell on lds.org) and the message really resonated with me today. Trying to break into the social media world is hard folks. I have definitely felt that this project is inspired, that it has a purpose and that there are people out there I need to reach. But trying to reach them and find my voice in the interwebs is hard and scary. Instagram is full of amazing mommy bloggers and influencers and it is easy to find myself comparing this little project to their broad reach. I doubt myself almost daily.
This does not just apply to me and this platform either. There are a lot of excuses and a lot of reasons to give up. Every day. Why finish cleaning this house when it will just be a mess again in five minutes? Why spend time making dinner for kids who will refuse to eat it? I’m not very good at this, that or the other – my neighbor is WAY better. That’s just not my thing.
All that nonsense comes from Satan. God doesn’t really care where we are on the path as long as we are continually moving forward. We aren’t meant to compare ourselves to others, just to our own yesterday. Or maybe are we doing better now than we were 10 minutes ago. Or maybe even just we are trying to do better, even if we are failing. So I am trying to do better now than I was last hour… when I was being a grump. Cheer up buttercup. You are doing better than you think you are.
Challenge: Find this talk by Elder Monson and read the whole thing. It is really beautiful and even 35 years later, so applicable.
