Over Christmas an interesting thing happened. I've been meaning to blog about this for awhile.
I somehow heard that Bill Smith (the Bishop of my home ward, who my family has known forever) was planning on quoting ME in his Christmas message he was giving to the ward from the pulpit. I obviously was surprised and confused. What could he want to quote me as having said? I'm just this little insignificant person, and I don't understand what would be important enough or interesting enough that everybody in the ward would want to hear it.
So, we are sitting there listening to his message, and he tells about this time when I was like 11 or 12, and he is teaching my sunday school class. The lesson is about the plan of salvation and apparently, I make a comment about how, in short, we're born, we have trials, and we die. I make no mention of the living and having joy in life, but only emphasize the fact that I believe life is about having trials. I didn't understand much of why Bishop Smith felt this would be a good message for the ward to hear, because basically he was revealing to the congregation my depression and cynicisms that seemed to have been manifested at a young age. He said, that when I said this, it struck him, and that he hadn't really thought about it before, but that he agreed with me.
One time, I remember discussing with Kenzie Lawrence the fact that we felt completely fine about dying at that point in our lives. We had both just gotten back from missions, and I do think that when you get back from a mission you feel a sense of closeness to the spirit and also complete exhaustion from the mission-life. This period didn't last long, and I don't know how I feel about dying now. I just think it's funny that we both felt okay about dying then.
I think fighting depression and being happy in life is a constant battle for many people. I wonder about happiness sometimes, because I feel that I'm a very even-keel (is that how it's spelled?) person and I've wondered how I am to gauge my degree, or level (if you will) of happiness. I have a great life, great family, great friends, and no clinical diagnosis for depression. I appreciate people who are very realistic about the challenges they are facing in life and do not try and bury struggles they are having.
I do think that we should remind ourselves on a consistent basis that joy should not be negated from life.
1 comment:
I think happiness is a choice. Obviously it isn't a naturally occurring phenomenon most of the time. You have to make a decision that you're going to see things positively and enjoy whatever life hands you, or not to. Most everyone I know well talks about what happiness it. After exhaustive discussions, this is all I have come up with.
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