Humility

Oops! I didn't write last night. I felt it was more important to take care of a few other things during my limited personal time during the week and weekend. I did spend a lot of time journaling, so I'm going to pull together some of those thoughts here. Some of these thoughts also come from a personal reflection essay I put together at the beginning of the year (I referred that in the "That Ye Be not Tempted" post).

The Lord has blessed me with experiences to help me know that I am nothing. As I approach the Lord in prayer, I feel especially humble this week. I feel an urgency to have the protecting, healing, and enabling power of the atonement present in my life. I know that I cannot be the father I want/need to be without the help of the Savior.

I find strength to be the person I want to be when I have the spirit with me. When I feel the influence of the Holy Ghost (whether or not I consciously recognize it), I feel happy and confident in the Lord's presence. I feel like a good person. As a fallen man however, too often I confuse the spirit's goodness with my own goodness. I mistakenly think that my happiness is a result of my goodness, when really the happiness is what comes from the grace of the gift of the Holy Ghost. If I make choices that offend the spirit, my perceived goodness vanishes and my own fallen nature becomes clear again to me.

In the past when I heard general authorities express their inadequacies, I often thought,"Really? Come on. You're an apostle. You really can't be serious about not feeling qualified. You're just saying that because that's what you're supposed to say." I thought that part of humility was confessing weaknesses and shortcomings, so sometimes I similarly expressed feelings of inadequacy, even though deep down inside I felt very capable. I wanted to be humble and feel like I relied on the Savior, but deep inside, I was prideful and thought that I was a pretty capable and good person.

The Lord is blessing me with experiences to allow me to deeply feel how truly inadequate I am.
I am coming to feel what I've known in my mind for a long time: we are all less than the dust of the earth. None of us is truly good. President Monson? Dirt. Joseph Smith? Dirt. Nephi? Dirt. They are not good, but learned to allow the spirit to act through them and spread the goodness of God. We are not inherently bad either, but we do need to daily overcome the desires and temptations of the flesh that are part of our fallen and sinful nature. The spirit is essential in allowing Christ to bring out the goodness we inherited from our divine Father.

Decisions, decisions

I'm going to break away from the normal "dad" topic and write a little about decision making. If you read Sadie's blog, you know that this past week we made some decisions about Sadie's classes. School started on Monday for Sadie, and it was a little overwhelming. The last two semesters Sadie took either two or three classes; it really consumed her free-time, and threw life off balance a little. We were trying to figure out if this was really what was best for the family and her long-term.

A while back, I learned about a simple tool for decision making with the letters KUPR:

• KNOWN - What is fact? What do we know about the situation?
• UNKNOWN - What don't we know?
• PRESUMPTIONS - Based on what we know, what do we think is the most probable outcome?
• RISK - What do we stand to lose? What pain could we face as a result of this decision?

This approach has always been helpful for me to organize my thoughts and distinguish fact from guesses. I don't think it's ever been the key to a decision, but more of a helpful brainstorming tool to get started.

As Sadie and I were talking, we (mostly I) started organizing our thoughts with this outline. Once I had it all out, we didn't really refer to it, but it was helpful to at least start thinking about the decision from different angles. 

While this kind of analysis is helpful, I've also learned over the years that emotion plays a vital role in decision making. Trying to map out all the possibilities is important, but really, sometimes you just gotta do what your heart tells you to do. So that's what we did.

When Sadie and I started talking again in the evening, we didn't mention the analysis; we just talked about how we felt. We both felt that the family needed balance, and Sadie spending 15-20 hours a week on homework wouldn't achieve that. We decided that school wasn't the right thing right now, and we brought our decision before the Lord in prayer. We felt great, and decided if we still felt great in the morning, then good-bye classes.

Well the morning came, and both Sadie and I were a little confused. Dropping classes still made sense in my mind, but my heart wasn't in it. Sadie felt the same way; what now?! Long-story short: Sadie learned that she didn't have to finish her degree in 8 years like she thought, so there was no need to cram everything in. She dropped a class, and has been enjoying studying for the remaining class. Taking one class at a time really allows her to enjoy her education and get the most out of it.

I'm very grateful for the processes of receiving revelation through prayer, and for the abilities the Lord gives us to make decisions.

The happy secret to better parenting

Awhile back, I watched this Ted Talk called The happy secret to better work. The speaker explains that happiness actually comes before success, not the other way around. The talk is only about 12 minutes, and well worth your time.

The same can be true in parenting. I've found that on nights when I just focus on being happy and enjoy being a dad, parenting seems to be easier and more "successful." When I think of success as rules, obedience, routines, etc. I tend to be disappointed.

This isn't to say that you can't do both; it's just that the focus on being happy has to come first. My happiness as a dad can't be based on outcomes; it needs to be focused on gratitude, love, optimism.

Play Like a Champion Today

I have a handful of different ideas here that I'm going to try to pull together. My thoughts are a little scattered, but hopefully they all make sense :).

Over the last couple weeks, there have been a few times where I feel like I've acted beneath the sacred calling of fatherhood. Tuesday of this week I sat down, studied, and pondered about how I could do a better job of parenting the way I'd like to parent, especially during bedtime.

The biggest thing on my mind was the priesthood blessing I would be giving Arilyn the next night, before she started school on Thursday. I wanted to be sure I felt good about my relationship with the kids and especially with the Spirit before I gave her a blessing.

I felt I needed a physical reminder of the need to maintain both of those relationships. As I parent, I need to remember that I hold the priesthood and that maintaining the Spirit of Christ in my home is a priority. I thought of the Play Like a Champion Today sign (maybe it's in Rudy?) famous in the Notre Dame football program. As the story goes, players touch the sign on their way out from the locker room before each game.

If it works for football, it can work for parenting, right? Well here's what I came up with:

Parent Like a Priesthood Holder today

Each night before bedtime this week, I've put my hand in the sign, to remember that the same hands I use to parent, are also laid on a child's head to give a blessing. The same mouth I use to parent is the same mouth that pronounces blessings. It has two scriptures on it - James 3:10 and Doctrine and Covenants 121:41-44. Seeing the scriptures and touching the sign has helped me remember my vision of parenting.

Going off on a tangent here - I'll try to bring it back, don't worry. I was discussing this a little with Jonathan (thanks for being my #1 reader bro!) this week. I lent him my Power of Habit audiobook, which discusses the concept of the habit loop: cue, routine, reward. The author uses the habit loop to illustrate that habits are changed when we change the routine, but keep the same cue and reward. Jonathan and I were sharing ideas about how this applies to parenting.

So what is the habit loop I'm trying to change? The cue can be something like Micah refusing to get his diaper on and/or kicking me in the face when I'm trying to do so. The routine - I use some kind of force (verbal or physical) to assert myself. The reward I'm seeking is control and respect - but really it comes down to power. The use of force does indeed provide that, although not in the way that I'd like.

By remembering that I hold the priesthood and acting worthy of it, I can obtain the same reward (power) from the same cues. I can be rewarded knowing that I maintain the ability to exercise priesthood power to bless my family. The routine I implement needs to be different, and clarifying the reward I'm seeking makes that easier to do.