DEAL WITH IT!!

I have spent a lot of time talking about the choices we make.  There is a good reason for this. It's because the only thing we can control is our own choices; actions and reactions.  I'm reminded of an old joke:  How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?  Only one, but the bulb must really want to change.  The point is that we can't change anyone else.  We can discuss what bothers us about others behavior but they will decide if they want to change it.

Any good marriage counselor will tell you that you can't change your partner.  All you women who married less than perfect men (that would be all of us), need to realize you can't mold them into the guy you wanted.  You have two choices.  Either learn to accept him for who he is, as is; or, if he is too imperfect, leave him.  Learning to accept may mean changing ones self to live with him.

This concept applies to most of life's situations.  Not just wives trying to change husbands.  We will always have people we have to deal with.  Life is filled with others.  Some of our dealings will be wonderful; others not so much.  The degree to which we suffer for other peoples choices will depend a great deal on our reactions.  Again we basically have two choices.  Accept or leave.  We can't always remove ourselves from unpleasant situations, so, if there are a lot of things we can't seem to deal with, the choice is clear.  We must change ourselves to become more tolerant.  I had a Stake president who used to love to give us this advice to survive church service, "We must have a soft heart and a thick skin."

Of course,  there are choices others will make that will cause us to suffer.  We can't avoid all of this. It won't always be a simple thing to just accept things that will happen in our lives.  There will be things people do that may be absolutely devastating.  The good news is that our happiness doesn't have to be determined by these things.  The bad news is that our happiness absolutely depends on how WE deal with these things.  To over simplify this concept, it boils down to one principal: FORGIVENESS.

I will not go into detail here, but I had some very devastating things happen to me when I was a child.  They were definitely the result of someone's choices and I had no control over them.  I spent years in therapy learning to deal with this.  The steps to getting over this were very much like mourning a death.  There was denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and  finally, acceptance.  What I finally realized was that in order to accept this I had to forgive.

The Lord instructed us to forgive everyone for a reason.  Simply put, our own sanity depends on it.  We can't get past the things others will do to us until we truly and completely forgive them.  We were also instructed to love our neighbors.  Beyond that, we are to love our enemies.  This is not an easy task.  I will discus it in more detail in future posts.  Today, I am putting it out there for readers to ponder.  I know I have over simplified the principle and realize it is a process, but there are ways to make it easier.  The main way is to learn to love all of mankind the way our Savior does.  Then the mild irritations of life won't cause us grief.  In addition, we will have some understanding of why things happen, making it easier to get over the real devastating things we will have to face.