Deal With It

For most of my life I have worked with young children. From babysitting, to being nursery leader, to nannying, and currently as an aide at a preschool. I’m with children all the time. Every now and then a child teaches me a life lesson that really couldn’t be learned from an adult, because it is through the simplicity of having a three year old say something that an adult can’t say without sounding like they are trying to manipulate or criticize you.

A few weeks ago, I was helping some children get their rain boots on so they could go play on the muddy playground. They had already gone out earlier that day, and socks had gotten wet. One child in particular was struggling to get their boots on over their wet socks. The child fussed, and whined, and dropped the boot in frustration. I finally decided to let the child know their options.

“You can take off your wet socks and wear the boots without socks. Or you can just deal with it.”

(I know it sounds harsh… hang in there)

The child looked at me, heaved a heavy sigh for a three year old and said. “Ok. I’ll just deal with it.”

The child then put their rain boots on, and ran off to play on the playground. For the rest of the day, not a word of complaint or discomfort came from that child. They had made the decision to “Just deal with it” and stuck with it.

As I thought about this, a quote from Elder Jeffery R. Holland came to mind: “ No misfortune is so bad that whining about it won’t make it worse.” (https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/04/the-tongue-of-angels?lang=eng)

As I related this incident to my dad (a freakin’ awesome guy, btw), we talked for a bit about this life lesson. As adults, and teens, and even children,  there is a tendency to put blame elsewhere; To complain, to whine, and to expend energy on not dealing with a situation and getting through it, but rather in complaining about it. In my dad's experience, those that can 'Deal with it' are those that are more successful in life. People want to be around them more, and they get more accomplished in life because they are not expending negative vibes, or wasting energy in complaining about what's going on around them. 

How can we as adults ‘just deal with it’ and in the process improve our lives? I know that for several people they use the month of November to focus on gratitude. They post daily on social media sites something they are grateful for. Unfortunately, quite a few people I know preface their ‘thankful’ post with a rant, complaint, or whine and follow it with “But I’m grateful for…”. While I think focusing on gratitude  is a good practice, I personally feel that if we can reduce the whining, complaining, and blaming in our daily lives we will automatically be more grateful. Because we aren’t drawing attention to the ‘negative’, we are just dealing with it and moving on.

And if we aren’t focusing on the negative, we are able to better see the blessings in our lives. So, whether you choose to post on social media what you are grateful for each day or not, please take a moment to ‘deal with it’, instead of complaining! 

Well Said...

So, one of my favorite Bloggers, Middle Aged Mormon Man, wrote a post this weekend and it said pretty much everything that I think about during the month of November.

Why? Because, as Pinterest said:

You should go read his post: Can We Stop Talking About Gratitude?

Thanks on Facebook

So, I know some people will post an "I am grateful for..." post on Facebook each day during November as a Thanksgiving type deal.

I personally don't like this. I won't do it. I refuse to jump on the bandwagon.

HOWEVER, I recently had some experiences that I felt needed to be put out there as an "I am grateful" post, but I didn't want to bore Facebook. We all know not many people read this blog, so thanks for putting up with me my few readers.

I am in grad school. Grad school is not fun. There is a stereotype of the 'poor grad student', and let me tell ya, I had no idea how true this can be. I end each month worried out of my mind about making all the bills and not starving. It's kind of scary at moments.

But, I was raised to pay tithing. I know you get blessed for paying tithing. Along with that, people in my church also pay a 'fast offering' where once a month you fast and pay the same amount of money that you would have paid for the meals you fast into a fast offering fund. This fund is then used to help people in the church who are struggling enough to really need assistance for buying groceries. I've paid this for the past few years as well.

The cool thing about tithing, and fast offerings in my opinion, is that Heavenly Father tells us that if we pay them He will "...open the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blssing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." (Malachi 3:10)

Lately it's been tough for me to pay these things, because it's a big chunk of money. But I also trust that I will be looked after for paying it. In order to motivate myself to keep paying tithing, I've been praying lately that I will recognize the blessings that are coming to me as a direct result of my paying my tithing.

And well, I feel like this has happened several times over.

I needed new shoes, because one pair of mine had somehow lost the right shoe. I was ready to buy a replacement pair of  them off of eBay. Last time I saw it was when I wore it to the zoo. Almost 3 months ago. This morning  I felt like I should look for this shoe in a particular box, that I have been through a couple times since then. I opened the box, which I needed something out of anyway, and the missing shoe literally fell into my hand.

I sold an item on my Etsy site. The first sale I've had in over a year. Not only that, but they requested a custom change to the item. I went to the store to buy some buttons in a color I don't have on hand. The buttons I wanted were missing one, 3 on the card instead of 4, and the manager at the store just let me have them. No charge.

Yeah, it's a $1.25, but that's enough for me to eat dinner on. And I usually have leftovers, so that's a dinner and lunch the next day.(And yes, I really can have dinner on a $1.25, I'm crediting a good mother who taught me how to cook along with the fast offerings.)

You can bet I'm grateful. And you can sure bet that I will continue to pay my tithing and fast offerings, even when I worry about my bills getting paid.