Wow!
I can't believe how the time goes by. I just realized it's been two and a half weeks since I last wrote, almost three. Much has happened.
First of all, I'm well established out in our little country home here. I am very glad I don't live in the city. I love Paris, don't get me wrong. But just spending the day there is exhausting. It's a very fast-paced life style. I enjoy the sensation of constant motion, but it's nice to come home to a quaint setting at the end of the day for a nice run out in the country.
My classes are wonderful. I only have four of them, which is a blessing, because I also teach four classes. One of the classes never meets. It consists of self-guided walking tours around Paris, and I think it's my favorite class. It is by far the most time consuming, but it's a great way to spend my time. Despite being as busy as ever with school and work, I somehow have more time to do what I want. I'm not quite sure how that works, but it's nice.
I think when I'm in Provo I make my life much busier than it needs to be, or at the very least, I have the impression that my life is busier than it is. I don't know if this is true for the rest of you, but I think it's the way the administration would have it be. Provo is so full of so many "good" things. That's the first time I've ever put "good" in quotes (and there's the second) when referring to the bustle of Mormon activities in Provo, because up until this point I was convinced that's what they were. I'm not so sure any more.
The very first Sunday at Church when my family first moved to Provo in 1992--and I still remember this--someone in our ward said something I will never forget. He said that we often have the impression that all is well in Zion when we're living in Utah, especially in Happy Valley. He said he felt people were largely doing what they should be and trying to do what is right. Satan wasn't going to get us on the big things, he was convinced, but he said that if he could just keep us busy with things we thought were important, he'd have us.
As an eight-year-old, this was a point of view I had never before considered. I had lived in Virginia my whole life where most people were of faiths other than my own. In terms of the quantity of Mormon activities to be involved in, I felt there was a good balance. As a family we were active in our faith, and I grew up with friends and activities both inside and outside the Church. The idea this brother was proposing, that we could have to much Church in our lives, had never entered my mind.
I'm still not sure how I feel about it. Is it possible to have too much Church in our lives? Yes. Too much spirituality? Maybe. I suppose it becomes a semantic argument of how we interpret the word spirituality. I think always keeping a level head involves keeping my principles in mind, which are largely motivated by my spirituality and my inner desire to live a life in line with my precepts, whatever they might be. This is neither the time nor the place to enumerate them, but I think you get the point.
But even my critique of Paris brings me back to Provo: sometimes I find myself more exhausted at the end of a day of trying to do everything I feel is expected of me in Provo than I ever would at the end of a day in Paris. Maybe I just need to get away from Provo a little more, I don't know.
But all this brings us to an interesting point: one of the biggest struggles I face personally is determining what is important in my life. It's simple in theory, but I've struggled applying it.
The more free time I've referred to comes in a variety of settings. One of them is the commute to and from Paris. It's a little over an hour each way by the time you count the bus and the train, so I've had some more time to read and think, but mostly just to think. I've been trying to determine what's important to me in life, but I haven't come to any firm conclusions. I get the impression that whatever I will decide, whether it's here in Paris or at some later point, will be an important key to happiness later in life.
"The pursuit of happiness," as Thomas Jefferson coined it, is a top priority for many, it seems, but who really knows how to go about pursuing it? Besides, what would be happiness for me might not be happiness for my neighbor, so shouldn't we both be going about it in different ways? Who am I to tell anyone how to be happy? I'm convinced there are certain things which are applicable to everyone, but that's another conversation.
Happiness to me is boiling down to managing expectations. That doesn't mean life isn't what it could be or ought to be, it just means I need to pull my head out of the clouds a little more often. As a child, I had unrealistic expectations. I don't think there's anything my mother could have done to live up to what I expected my birthday to be. Parties, candles, friends, gifts, you name it--I needed it all. I've grown out of that now. Sometimes I tell people when my birthday is approaching, and I might even invite some friends over. I'm much happier talking to my family than opening a present, though. There's so much more to life than material possessions and the pursuit of accumulating them. I get much more satisfaction out of going for a run or spending some time with a friend.
And so it's in this spirit of self-evaluation that I lived an event today that made me think about an attitude I have towards material possessions. I feel blessed, and I like to share with others. Whether it's giving someone a ride (or even lending my car), lending someone my tux, or just sharing what I have, I don't see a reason not to share something I'm not using at the time. What good does it do to have stuff sitting around when someone could be using it? I've always felt a feeling of satisfaction from sharing.
Sharing had always served me well, until recently. Some things I've lent out recently never made it back. Even some expensive things. Other things I've lent out have come back in noticeably worse shape than when I lent them.
All this is background for something that happened today at Church. A brother in front of me was struggling to keep his young son quiet during Sacrament Meeting. Nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual wiggles. He turned around and asked the people seated in our row if someone had a pen. I'm down to my last one, as I have lent out the others (some of which never made it back), and I was a little hesitant to give him my pen. I didn't know what he or his son was going to do with it, and the thought of having to find another pen somewhere was not appealing.
And that's when it hit me: does it really matter? What if his son eats the pen and I never see it again? It's a pen! A ten-cent piece of plastic. It doesn't matter. But that got me thinking: what about anything else I own. If someone else breaks it, loses it, damages it, does that matter either? Why do we value the things we do? Because they cost money? Shouldn't we be placing value on what's really important? Material possessions can be replaced. People cannot.
My justification for my hesitation is this. I suppose that in our material possessions, at least those acquired through our work, is invested a little piece of us. Time is another thing we can never get back. If I work for 30 years to pay for a house, there's a part of me in it. I have worked to pay for it. How much harder it is to leave behind!
A ten-cent pen shouldn't bother me, but am I right to be a little more hesitant with more expensive material possessions? Again, why do I value them, and what is it I actually value?
Just some food for thought. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say.
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