Keep your half

"We’ll never grow as we need to grow and learn what we need to learn without opposition.  To become what we’re meant to become, we must overcome our challenges.  So you shouldn’t want what the other half of the world has.  Just keep your half because it’s what you need."

Some things never change as we get older.  There will always be death and taxes.  The coolest toys always come out after you grow up.  And the grass is always greener on the other side.

At least that how it appears.  So many of us look at others and think their lives are much better than our own because they don’t appear to have our problems.  If only we could be like them, we think, our own lives would be so much better.

But that’s a lie we should never heed.  The truth is everyone has challenges.  When you solve one problem, you’ll find a completely new problem just around the corner.  Or you’ll merely swap your old problem for a new one.  Life wasn’t meant to be problem-free for anyone.

And that’s good.  We’ll never grow as we need to grow and learn what we need to learn without opposition.  To become what we’re meant to become, we must overcome our challenges.  So you shouldn’t want what the other half of the world has.  Just keep your half because it’s what you need.

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Don’t run away

The longing after what appears to be greener grass on the other side of the fence is often just a desire to escape from our current challenges rather than overcome them.  If we simply ran away from those challenges, we’d certainly not progress towards becoming what we’re meant to become.

I know I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I’d decided to run away.  For example, on my mission in Guatemala, I constantly battled illness.  Had I agreed to come home early, I wouldn’t have had the blessing of teaching the gospel in my own language and to people from different parts of the world in the neighboring country of Belize.  I wouldn’t have had the companions I had, each one of whom taught me something.  My mission experiences continue to bless me and benefit my life decades after my service.

Facing our trials and working to overcome them have changed us all for the better.  We’re better people because we decided not to run away from those experiences but rather to embrace them and allow them to change us into something more than what we were before.

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Embrace the opportunity

In addition, those challenges themselves can be blessings in their own right.  But we’re not likely to see that as long as we keep wanting to cross to where the grass appears greener.  We’ve got to learn to want what we’ve already got.  And that means changing the way we think in order to see the blessings our challenges are.

Sometimes that blessing comes as opportunity to bless the lives of others.  For instance, my experience being single for more than two decades has, to say the least, increased my compassion for those who struggle with the challenges of LDS singles life.  And that compassion is a large portion of the fuel that drives me in producing Joy in the Journey Radio.  How many lives have been and will be blessed because of my personal ministry?

If you feel the siren call of grass that appears to be greener, ask yourself who could be blessed because you stayed on your side of the fence.  Someone there may need your contribution, a contribution only you can make because only you have your unique personality paired with your challenges.

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Confront your challenge

In the end, we are our choices.  The grass may indeed seem greener on the other side, but there’s much value in the greenness of the grass we already have.  We can all choose to lift where we stand, thereby blessing others while growing from the confrontation with our challenges.

Besides, nothing good comes from wishing we could exchange places with that other half of the world that seems to have a better life.  The results we want will never come from wishing because they can come from one and only one thing — action.  Better to spend our time confronting our challenges and learning how to overcome them than to waste away wishing for what will never come with the wish alone.

When you choose to keep your half instead of longing after the half someone else appears to have, when you choose to embrace challenges rather than seek ways to escape them, when you choose to see them for the blessings they are in and of themselves, then you’ll see that the grass on the other side of the fence isn’t that much greener after all.  That will increase your gratitude to God for His bounteous blessings you already have.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

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You can listen to the monologue from today's episode of Joy In The Journey Radio here.  Please also feel free to continue the conversation by leaving a comment below.  Want to hear more?  Listen to the whole show by going to the show page for this episode.