Priorities

Why do I complicate life so much that I feel frustrated that I don't have enough time in my day?

Ray was up at 2 am. I never could get back to sleep, but as I lay there trying - I began thinking about the pioneer museum we went to yesterday.

It's always neat to be reminded how long it took people to do the things we take for granted every day: washing clothes by hand, milking cows, making cheese, harvesting grain, making flour, making bread, weaving fabric, spinning yarn, making silk, making lace, sewing clothes, raising animals, chopping them up for food, preserving the food, planting, harvesting, etc., etc., etc....

They somehow had to make time for it all and yet their lives were so simple - not easy - but simple.

Here I am with machines that wash and dry the clothes for me, a dishwasher, a fridge, a freezer, a grocery store with more than I could ever want, a stove and an oven with knobs to turn them on, etc. And yet, I feel like I don't have enough time in my day....

Why do we make our lives so complicated? As I lay thinking, I wondered if it has to do with focus.

It seems like the pioneers had to focus on the essential. There were just things that had to get done to survive so they got to work and just did them. Then at night, when the work was done, they would sit together as families and read from a great book (often the Bible) - usually while they did some kind of quiet work as they listened.



In the process, they learned - and taught their children - to work hard, be honest, have virtue, be grateful and to value those things that really matter.

I think our problem now is that the essential things for our survival are so easy to obtain. We are left with all sorts of choices about what to do with our time.

With so many choices we go on a search for what we most want to do, and in the process we neglect those essential things that strengthen our character and guide us on the path that will bring us the most happiness.

I think all of us need to step back sometimes to evaluate if what we are spending our time on is the essential or if it's just fluff.

The essential things to me are:
1. Drawing closer to God
2. Helping others draw closer to God
3. Building relationships

Thinking that through, I wrote a list of the essential things for me to be doing:
-Scripture study and prayer
-Going to the temple often
-Family scripture study, prayer and home evening
-Working with my family
-Serving each other and others

Here's the really important things for me to do:
-Reading good books as a family (builds our character)
-Playing with my family
-Studying good books on my own (they offer insights into truth and inspire me to contemplate on my life and my mission in it).
-Staying healthy (alertness and energy)
-Magnify my callings
-Writing (papers - about the books I read, or blogging - I get insights as I write and I learn as I try to organize my thoughts into coherent sentences).
-Developing my talents
-Learning in different ways - art, science, math, etc - to open my eyes to more truth and beauty and to inspire the kids to want to do the same.

That's my list. Maybe I missed something, but it seems to me that I must do the things on my essentials list and work very hard to do the things on my very important list. That's pretty simple. I don't need to try to cram anything else in.

I've already established good habits for most of my "essentials" and many of my "very important". Now I just have to prayerfully make a schedule or plan that will allow me to consistently accomplish the rest of these simple things and then... RELAX - for the rest is just fluff.

Distractions

I've tried taking a toy away when 2 kids were fighting over it, but sometimes this caused unfavorable results (the kids were more mad at each other because they blamed one another - and me- for having their toy taken away).

This is something else that reading about the Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, got me thinking about...

Something he did to keep his people temperate is to take away all distractions. For instance, he had them trade in all their gold and silver for iron (which was too cumbersome and heavy to be of any use). This eliminated many temptations that would be a harm to his ideal state.

Alexander the Great did the same thing when his soldiers were getting weighed down with too much booty - he just burnt it all - and they were glad of it.

This got me thinking that a good way to help the kids focus on the vision we have for our family would be to get rid of things that distract us from that goal.

In the last April conference, Elder Uchtdorf's talk "We are Doing a Great Work and Can Not Come Down" was very inpiring about this.

I've tried to get rid of distractions as I see them, but there are so many of them - and THINGS seem to cause plenty of contention around here.

I explained this to the kids, "If something is keeping us from being an eternal, happy family - isn't that thing worth getting rid of?" They agreed that it was. I told them we would be getting rid of any THING that caused contention. They agreed.

The first trial was harder than I expected. Spice and Bud were fighting over a toy that happened to belong to Little Miss. I said, "That is so sad that we have to get rid of Little Miss' toy when this wasn't even her fault. They both gave Little Miss the toy and asked me to please not take it from her. I didn't - on the condition that they wouldn't let it cause any more contention.

Another instance was just as hard because one person WAS being unfair and I wanted to step in and help the other, but I wanted them to work it out on their own so I took the toy, explaining that it was not more important than the love I knew they had for each other. In a short time, the unfair person saw her fault and asked me to give the toy to her sister.

I think taking toys is working this time because they are seeing the whole picture - what we're trying to accomplish. They see the "love of things" for what it is - a distraction from our goal.


(no this isn't a picture of our play room)

Spartans

Circumstances lately (okay - way too much sibling rivalry) have led me to ponder on how to establish family unity.

I was reading about a man named Lycurgus - he was the lawgiver or the Greek city-state of Sparta. His government lasted for more than 500 years! AND it was not a comfortable society to live in - the people had to sacrifice a lot for this state (including their children - they were brought up by the state after the age of 7!)

I was intrigued..."Why?" I asked myself, "did the people not rebel? Why did it go on even after he was dead?"

I gave it a great deal of thought and even though I have different goals than Lycurgus, I learned a lot, I'll write on it more later, but one of the things that I concluded is that he was able to get his people to see and buy into his vision for their state. He truly believed in it and it really was ideal for what he was trying to accomplish.

It occurred to me... I need my kids to really SEE my vision for our family and for them to also believe in it and want it. This way we would all be reaching for the same goal and we would be united.



How do I accomplish this? Some of the obvious ways are to inspire them daily to see the vision by morning devotionals, FHE, family scriptures and family prayers.



I realized that they also needed to have the skills (physically, spiritually and emotionally) to work towards that mission. I'll write more later about what I've come up with so far to help them develop those skills, but the first thing I did after reading about Lycurgus is to ask the kids to help me put together a mission statement. I might add something later, but I wanted to keep it very simple so the kids could see a clear goal. Here's what we put together:



We, the Bates love to help each other and those around us.
We will build our characters by learning, saying, and doing good things.
With strong characters we can help our Heavenly Father by sharing our light with those around us - especially each other.
We will work hard to make sure every one of us makes it back to be together with our Heavenly Father and Jesus forever.



They all agreed that this is what they wanted for our family. Since then (okay, it's only been a week!), when there is contention, someone will often remember to say, "Hey, that's not helping us reach our family mission!" It's been a good thing.

Magical Backyard

The kids opened up the door to the back yard today and there was a great gasp. I looked out to see what happened and they were all standing in awe. Bud just said, "It's so beautiful!"


I had to admit, it did look pretty magical (of course, the pictures don't do it justice).



There really weren't a lot of leaves on the ground, but they just had to rake up a pile and jump in it they said.



There ensued a big argument about who would get to rake. They finally came up with the idea that they would each take 3 minute turns. Somehow I think that they won't be quite so anxious to rake by the end of the season....

Football Talk

Spice: How did BYU get worse? (On the polls since Oklahoma)

Bud: Because they got beat by Florida

Spice: Isn't Florida #1?

Bud: No, Florida Gators are #1, not Florida State

Spice: Is Florida State good?

Bud: Not really, they got killed by another team

Little Miss: Well then, of course they're not good, because they're already dead.

True Wisdom - Plato - The Apology

The Apology made me ponder on the significance of true wisdom.

It reminded me of this scripture:

2 Nephi 9:28

When they are learned they think they are  wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not.

What is the point of learning if we're not using that knowlege?  I've had the experience of going to church and hearing a doctrine like the importance of sincere and heart-felt prayer and then going home and not applying it (I'll not put enough thought into my prayers).  True wisdom is learning and using that knowlege to become a better person.  That is how one finds truth - not merely by studying. but by doing and becoming.


In The Apology, Socrates argues his case to a jury of 500 men as to why he is not guilty of not believing in the Gods and corrupting the youth.

I thought Socrates was sincere and felt he was called of God to teach the people of Athens to be humble.  He was right that they were prideful (it is the reason they fought Sparta which proved to be their ruin).  Socrates knew that all this pride was bad for Athens and he wanted to show people that they weren’t as smart as they thought they were.  He said the only reason he was wiser than them was that he knew he did not know anything whereas others thought they did.

I was sad when the people condemned him to death.  It showed that pride was a vice for too many and they preferred to do murder than to swallow that pride.  Socrates handled it very well and I believe he was at peace with himself enough that death wasn’t frightful to him.  He seemed to have a good relationship with God and was prepared to meet him.

Favorite Quotes:

On being wise:

“I am better off than he is, - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I either know nor think that I know.”

“I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”

“He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”

On being condemned to death:

“The envy and detraction of the world, which has been the death of many good men, and will probably be the death of many more; there is no danger of my being the last of them.”

“A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong.”

“The difficulty, my friends, is not to avoid death, but to avoid unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”

His purpose:

“God orders me to fulfill the philosopher’s mission of searching into myself and other men.”

“I shall obey God rather than you.”

“Are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard of heed at all?”

“I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

On death:

“I shall then be able to continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so also in the next.”

On his children:

“If they seem to care about riches, or anything more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something when they are really nothing, -then reprove them, as I have reproved you.”

Strengthening Our Families: An In-Depth Look at the Proclamation on the Family

I love this book. It was our Text for the basic Family course at BYU. It is full of articles put together by Family Life professors about everything in the Proclamation on the Family. I recently picked it up again to see what it had to say about family work.
It's Edited by David C. Dollahite, and written by too many people to name.

I would love to do a study group about this book someday. Maybe I'll eventually get around to it.