First time living

Its taken me a while to get this post together. It's been hard for me to organize my thoughts in a way that I feel does justice to what I want to share. But, I think I've got it! So, lets give this a go.

I think its common for people to wish that they could go back to the past and change something about their lives. This is at least true for me. But I'm learning that what I would change isn't solidified to a singular event, or a specific time period, but an over arching thought pattern that crippled me and my ability to enjoy living. A few close friends and I have termed this destructive thought pattern the "golden boy syndrome."

Now, we all know what the golden boy is. The perfect child, the straight A student, the peter priesthood, the gospel scholar, the boy that is always optimistic, and practically perfect in every way. Perhaps there are some people that can achieve this ideal, but certainly I did not, I do not, and in this life I never will. The sad thing is, that this is what I grew up expecting myself to be and when I didn't measure up I believed I was a failure. It's a hard thing to spend your life believing you're a failure.

My battle with the "golden boy syndrome" aided in my twisting the merciful gospel of Jesus Christ into a dreaded thing, that I both loved and hated. I loved because I could feel the joy of the truth of it, but I hated because I felt that I was going to fail. I felt that the standard was too high, I couldn't achieve the perfection that Jesus commanded, and I thought I was hopeless. I felt powerfully that the atonement was real, and I believed that it came into effect after we had respectively done our part. But my belief about what it meant to do my part was very rigid and daunting. Every time I wasn't perfect, or made a mistake, I would ruminate over what I could have done differently. Knowing that I could have done things different, or better, made me believe that I had NOT done my part, and therefore I was hopeless.

Then came the shame. The gospel also teaches about Godly sorrow, and boy did I have a weird belief of what that was. I think I believed that if I hated myself enough, God would believe that I was actually repentant, and maybe I would have a chance of forgiveness. But here is a gold nugget of a lesson that I have learned about the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says "I have done something wrong, but I am still good and can do better." Shame says "I have done something bad, therefore I am evil." I spent a lot of time living under the murky sludge that is shame. Thankfully, I have learned that shame has no place in God's plan, and it is a trick of the devil. God uses inspiration and hope, so while we feel bad about things we may have done, the spirit will fill us with the love of God, and hope of a better future. Godly sorrow does not equal self loathing and depression.

Well, all of this destructive thinking started to loose its grasp on me after a breakup of all things. I was being very hard on myself because I felt that I had been very insensitive and abrupt in the way that I handled ending this particular relationship. I was analyzing everything that had been said in "the" conversation, and I was tearing myself apart for how "horribly" I handled things. I was starting the slide into another episode of self loathing and deprecation when I had an inspired thought.

The thought was this. "This is your first time being mortal, and you have not had many relationships, you can't expect to do everything perfectly in this relationship, give yourself a break."

This little thought was the beginning of an awesome journey.

At first, the thought only applied to that relationship, and then it began to spill over into other aspects in my life. I began to look at things differently all around. When I would make a mistake I would try to stop myself from shaming myself, and thinking about how "bad" or "evil" I was, and instead remind myself that this is my first mortal experience EVER, and then allow myself the learning that comes from the mistake.

Now don't misunderstand, there are days that I am better at this than others. And some days I fail completely, but over the past couple years I have gradually gotten better. And, its been very refreshing, to finally start believing that I don't have to be perfect today, or tomorrow, or even when I'm 100. I just have to try to keep improving.

This change of perception has been so refreshing, and life changing. This dark cloud of inadequacy and a complete inability to measure up has lifted. Instead of constantly hating myself, and being depressed about how "bad" I am, I finally get to see myself a little bit more how God sees me. The future becomes much more inviting when it is relinquished of unachievable expectations. So from now on I get to enjoy living, and even failing, because that is all part of the experience.