I Hate My Weaknesses, but...

Weaknesses just suck. It is tough to see yourself each time become subject to your weaknesses over and over again. When you think that you have came over your weaknesses, it is still there and it is a bother. It hurts your self confidence and sometimes your self worth when you fail to yeild to your weaknesses. So if these are the effects of weaknesses, why are they necessary?

Well, why do we have weaknesses in the first place? Wouldn't it just be easier if we were strong in all things so that we won't have to go through heartache, depression, or other hard feelings? Well, yes you would be right. Life would be easier. But what is a easy life worth if you don't know the various different feelings to endure and to learn about? If we all had no weaknesses in our lifes, where would be the experience you would gain in trying to overcome that weakness.

I will tell you now that, for some reason, I absolutely love the feeling of doing something very challenging or hard and completing it. It helps me realize I can do hard things. Let me give you an example that happened pretty recently: I work at a warehouse job and it isn't too hard. It is mainly packaging foods and all that. One day, in the middle of my shift I got super weak. It wasn't mainly a throwing up feeling, it was just that my body felt weak and tired. It wasn't a regular tired old feeling you feel when you don't get enough sleep or that "2 o'clock" feeling people have. I could have easily just said, "Hey, I am really tired and I think I am sick so I want to go home." But I really wanted to earn the money. I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to push onward. I went throughout the rest of the work shift feeling super sore and tired, but I finished the shift. Even though I felt like I was going to faint or just purely sleep, I felt great! I felt good that I pushed through to the end.

Now you may say that I shouldn't have pushed my body that way and it wouldn't be good for it. But that isn't the point I wanted to say. Do we feel sometimes the same way about our weaknesses? Do we think, "You know what, let's just take the easy way out and give into temptation or give into our weaknesses and not make them strong."? Even though it may seem easy at first, the feeling afterword just sucks! You feel like you can't do anything. You feel like you are back at square one and that you can never get passed that step.

These are usually the thoughts that I think of when I keep coming back to my weaknesses. It is terrible. But it isn't good to dwell on these thoughts forever. What I do is I look on how much I improved from last time. Like, "Look how much money I saved this time instead of spending it all." or "Look how much I have ignored or not gotten into this temptation." I learn this tatic thanks to one of Al Fox's posts about overcoming trials.

When we look at the scripture in Enos about our weaknesses become strengths, what do we think usually? I remember that I thought that if I simply asked the Lord about turning my weakness into a strength, it would turn into one that instant or sometime that day. Sometimes we fail to remember that things happen in the Lord's time. Your weaknesses will become strengths or stronger throughout, but it will never happen in just an instant. We need to get up and fall multiple times to show that we mean it and to learn how to continually fight against your weakness.

So why do we have weaknesses? To learn. To learn to be humble. To learn to continue fighting. To learn to trust. To learn to be patient. And probably most importantly, to learn more about ourselves and God. We learn more about the potential that we can do as we strive to improve our weaknesses. This life isn't just about doing, it's about becoming.

When I was finishing my mission, I felt amazing. Not just because of the many experiences I had. Not just because of the many people I had meant. But because I had finished it. There many, MANY times on my mission that I wanted to quit and give into going home. I kept telling myself I would feel a lot better if I was just home moving onto my life. But that feeling of accomplishing your entire mission is one of the best feelings you can have so far throughout your life. Accomplishing something that was hard in your life is awesome. I hate weaknesses, but I love strengthening my weaknesses.

Pressure of Getting Married

Being in Utah and being single can be pretty tough. The default mindset of when you come home from your church mission is usually looking for a wife and dating a ton. This is a pretty good goal to think about. I mean, we all want to be with someone we love all the time whether we want marriage or not. But being pressurized to get married fast or not jumping on dating can be stressful.

I have been home from my mission for about 5 months now and haven't gone on a single date. Why? That's a good question because most days I ask myself that. Why don't I reach out and ask girls on dates? Am I scared? Do I think it's a waste of time? I have been thinking about this a while and it does trouble me. Being married to the one I love is one of my huge goals. Before I came home from my mission, I had an interview with my mission president and we were discussing the next goals in my life. Everything looked like it was lined up right with school, jobs, transportation. The only thing that wasn't super clear was dating. My mission president gave me this advice, "When you fine the right girl and you love her and she loves you, don't wait for while, make plans to get married." At first this was pretty alarming to hear. Getting married or planning marriage that soon while dating?! That's super fast. But as I have come back to a normal life, I can see others who do put off marriage for quite sometime and you see them question their relationship and things start falling apart.

We should date! Absolutely! No question! But for some odd reason we think when we go on dates that instantly we are in a relationship with that person. One date means a relationship to us. I find that funny. I even thought that way in High school. But dating helps us understand who the person we asked on a date truly are and we get to know them.

There is also one point I want to make before I drop this topic. I am a big believer of fixing ourselves or finding ourselves before we depend on others for happiness or discovering ourselves. If we depend to much on one person for our happiness, we soon lose what we find our own happiness on whether it be scriptures, sports, friends, family or whatever. Once we find our happiness or our road, then the relationship we have with others will not completely control our life.

I am a wierd person. I AM! I like certain things that others find wierd, time wasting or whatever. But does that stop me from thinking about dating or moving foreword from life? No. Just because I like something that may seem odd, different, or doesn't quite fit your life style doesn't mean I don't go through the same struggles as others do or just ignore them.

Marriage is, again, one of my big goals. And I am sure that over time I will learn more about preparing for marriage or just love in general. I don't know everything about love and I don't believe anyone else does either. But we constantly learn more about it every day as we should.

Don't let others pressure you to go on dates. Go at your own pace. Don't let others press you to get married super soon. Go at your own pace and pay attention how good you feel about the situation. Get your life in order so that your future spouse may help you, but not be all depended on.