Perfect

Sadly, I actually do this...

I've discovered recently (okay, not really, more just been willing to acknowledge) that I over think things....like everything. I wouldn't say that I assume the worst in life, more that I examine the worst along with the best situations. This has oftentimes led me to make false assumptions or draw bad conclusions. So I wouldn't consider myself a pessimist or even really a realist...more like an everythingist if that's a term.

So, here I am trying to organize my thoughts into something meaningful, and it's proving to be tougher than expected. I look back at some of my old posts and think to myself 'hey, those weren't half bad sometimes.' I don't know it can be so hard to do something I actually really like, I just find myself wanting to one-up myself and constantly be writing better and better posts. What I fail to realize when I do that is that I'm sometimes trying to force quality writing when sometimes life doesn't offer high quality material to work with. One thing I know for sure, I am a perfectionist.

I don't really know why I cross examine every detail of everything, but I do it anyway. I keep tabs on what I do and say, I watch my humor and am careful about what I say and always try and toe the line of how far I can push a joke before it's too inappropriate or annoying. I am like hyper sensitive about how I act around different people, and I read way too far into things. That may be why I'm so good at helping other people not read into things, yet I can't seem to help myself out.

They say we're our worst critic, and I totally believe that's true. I am a people pleaser. While I'm not totally willing to change everything about me just to make everyone like me, I definitely don't like it when people don't like me. When people expect me to make something for them, whether it be a video, a picture or whatever, I always end up taking forever on it because I'm constantly noticing things I can change to make it better. Even when the person it's intended for is okay with it, I'm still not. I just want things to be...perfect.

It's hard for a perfectionist to look around him and see perfection. I look around and see someone that just nailed their hair day, or their clothes just fit them perfectly, or a fellow cameraman just got the golden replay shot, etc. The only problem with that is that I'm only seeing their perfect moments, forgetting that they have scores of imperfect moments that I don't see.

You know what? I just realized I did not explain myself and why I'm talking about this.

Sorry about that.

I guess there's a lot of reasons, but at the same time not any one particular reason. If I could pinpoint one thing I would say it was the mission. Going out there and having 2 years to focus on the things of the soul really opened up my eyes to how much is truly required of us. When I think of the fact that Christ lived a perfect life, especially in the light of all that that entails, my mind is a little bit blown when I realize how many times a day I screw up. I believe in humanity, and I believe that most people do not wake up in the morning thinking about how many times they can ruin or mess up their day. If they're anything like me, they want their day to go without a hitch (yes, I looked that up to make sure the saying was right...). They, like me, wake up thinking that today is going to be a great day. However, as the day wears on, it's harder and harder to believe in that perfect day when it's cold outside, your shoes got wet from the rain, you were running a little late to class so it made you sweaty, you do the awkward high five/fist bump thing passing a friend on campus, the list goes on and on. Add that to the moments when you say something trying to be funny but instead hurt someone's feelings, or you get upset about something you know you shouldn't be upset about, or you're incredibly annoyed because someone won't stop clearing their throat. 

I know, it's a lot to take in.

Anyway, as the day wears on and I have those natural and instinctive reactions, I get frustrated with myself thinking that I shouldn't do that or say that or think that or act like that or feel that way. I just want to be the best person I can be, and when I feel like I fall short of that, I get frustrated.

Christ commands us to be "perfect, even as your father which is in Heaven is perfect." (Matt. 5:48) So obviously there's no room for falling short right?

Right?

Well, hold on a second, doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose of the Atonement? I mean, we're sent here as imperfect people, and we're given an entire lifetime and beyond to work on that commandment. Obviously we're going to screw up, and that's why the Atonement is there. Brad Wilcox put it this way 

There should never be just two options: perfection or giving up. When learning the piano, are the only options performing at Carnegie Hall or quitting? No. Growth and development take time. Learning takes time. When we understand grace, we understand that God is long-suffering, that change is a process, and that repentance is a pattern in our lives. When we understand grace, we understand that the blessings of Christ’s Atonement are continuous and His strength is perfect in our weakness. When we understand grace, we can, as it says in the Doctrine and Covenants, “continue in patience until [we] are perfected”.

So how exactly do we continue in patience until we are perfected? The same way we eat an elephant: one bite at a time. 

If we just work at this whole perfection thing a little at a time, eventually we'll get there. We have eternity for crying out loud! God doesn't expect us to just wake up perfect, He knows it takes time and a lot of tripping up to finally get it all together, and He is good and patient to wait until we get there. He doesn't really worry about where we're at, more like where we're headed. If He knows we're taking tiny baby steps, but in the right direction, it's good enough for Him. I think Lorenzo Snow came up with the right formula:

"Be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today." 

AMS

New Year, New Life

Okay, let's try this again.

Okay, it's a new year and we have a chance to start over again. I have a lot, I mean a LOT, to catch us up on.

I don't know why I suck so badly, and so frequently, at writing here. To be honest, I really really like it. I really like being able to dump all of my thoughts and feelings here while showing pictures to accompany it. It's really the perfect journal for me. I love looking back at my freshman year of college and seeing everything that went on. It brings back a lot of precious memories that I probably would have forgotten had I not written in my blog. Well, it's 2015 now and I can be a new man if I want to.

It's weird to think that the last time I wrote about the new year was 2012, three years ago now. My how time flies. Speaking of time flying, this year flew by! I can't believe it's been 7 months now since I wrote here...man I suck sometimes. #newyearnewme So to give you a brief rundown on the last 7 months of my life, let me give you a quick synopsis.

June: I met this girl named Courtney Record and she became the first official post-mission girlfriend. I met her through a mission friend and we hit it off pretty well. She lives in Taylorsville (an hour away from my house) so that was kind of tough, but we managed to make it work. She was a really sweet girl that I really had a great time with, I'll explain later what happened. I worked a lot. It pretty much took up my entire summer which was fine; I really didn't have a ton to do anyway. Jake and I hung out a lot with occasional cameo appearances from Ethan and Wes. Wes introduced a new friend to us named Austin, and he was a pretty cool kid. He liked Minecraft and other things we like so we hit it off pretty well. I started working at the Provo Temple as an ordinance worker (meaning, I helped out everywhere you can help out in the temple). That was a really great experience. Whitney turned 23 and Benji turned 17 (yikes). I also met this girl named Jennifer working devotional. More on her later.

July: Worst. Month. Ever. We went to Wyoming for the biannual family reunion, but it was only me, Jarom, Mom and Dad. Whitney came later, and Benjamin had to work (lucky duck got the house to himself for half a week). I got put in Jared's attic where they were having a moth infestation. Jarom was fighting a sinus infection or something so he would just cough and snore while I was up for hours each night catching and killing moths. Well, that eventually caught up to me and I was sick as a dog by the end of the week. We drove home with Whitney in the cramped backseat which turned out to be literally the worst car ride of my life. I cannot express to you how much of me wanted to die. I had already taken a week of work off, but now I had to take another off to get better. I had pretty much all of the mono symptoms without actually having mono. I went to the doctor's twice over the month to figure out what was wrong, but they couldn't figure it out. so freaking annoying. I was pretty weak and susceptible to disease and germs all month and I suffered greatly. The illness lasted about the entire month and included the sinus infection that Jarom had along with the worst sore throat ever. I continued working shoots for BYUtv like SportsNation (my favorite) and Studio C. I worked that night as the animal wrangler and helped that Jennifer girl with her catering since she was in charge of catering the meals for the cast.

August: Pretty much the same as June. Todd and Kelton came home from their missions, and we got some quality bro time in. Things quickly fell apart with Courtney as we realized that the distance just wouldn't work once I didn't have a car. Things ended on good terms, but they definitely ended. I moved out (FINALLY) to my new apartment with Jake and school started. Our roommates were being dumb and didn't want to move rooms so Jake and I could be roommates, it was a mess that Jake never got over. One night I decided to just man up and see if Jenn wanted to hang out and we watched a movie at her apartment. A couple of weeks later we went and got shakes with Jake and her roommate Nat. We just got along so well and had a ton of fun together.

September: School was in full force and was stressful. I was working 2 jobs, had 5 classes, got my bike stolen which had me on feet all the time, and had my shift at the temple (not to mention hanging out with Jenn and Nat every night and 4 callings in the ward). I was staying afloat but it was really weighing me down. Jenn had told me that she was waiting on a missionary, so even though I was really really interested in her, I didn't want to get in the way. I know how it feels to be on the missionary side of this situation having gone through the same thing with Mackenzie, so I decided not to do anything about it. Jenn, on the other hand, had different ideas. At the end of the month we were officially dating. Jenn is an amazing girl. She's drop dead gorgeous, super funny, has my sense of humor to a T, is really energetic and spunky, really spiritual, and overall fun to be around. We can be doing absolutely nothing, or goofing around like psychos but we just love being around each other. I've really never met a girl like her, and feel extremely lucky to have her.

October: Man things got rough. So in the midst of all the business and stresses, I managed to find myself slipping into dark places. I don't know if it was a lack of sleep or just my overall busy lifestyle but I guess my mental health couldn't handle it and things got pretty hard for me. I got the help I needed, but it was a rough time for me. Jenn was really sweet and supportive though the whole thing which meant the world to me, still does. Through it all, I managed to still find fun things to do like football games, haunted forests, and ice skating. It was a really hard month, but we still took advantage of my favorite month.

November: The first half of the month was riddled with papers galore. I think I had something like 20 pages of papers to write, and somehow they all got turned in on time. Thanksgiving break was a much needed blessing. Thanksgiving was so good, I mean, SO good. What a blessed holiday. That's really all there was to report on November.

December: I kept trudging through papers and papers and papers to come upon Finals week, this is the moment I've been waiting for.

That's about right.

Actually, I somehow got out of this last semester with an A, two A-, and 2 B's!! I was thrilled beyond belief, and hopefully I'll survive this next semester too. Christmas was really nice. I got a bunch of stuff I already knew I was getting haha but it was still good. I spent the second week of Christmas break in St. George with Jenn and her family.

Okay so I'm all caught up on the happenings of this last year. Now we're in January of 2015. This is a whole new year of opportunities, and I'm ready to grab life by the horns. I'm going to try and write in this more often, so wish me luck. I sat down the other day and wrote out my goals for this year, I'm ready to take on the world!

AMS