Still Trying

[ 6 ] June 8, 2012 AD |

Eventually, they tell me, the emotions will fall in line with the will.  That is, if you decide to “go forth and do” a thing when you don’t feel like it, somewhere along the line you’ll eventually start feeling like it after all.  The emotions are trainable.  The soft underbelly of human nature will get accustomed to getting up early, to being drooled upon, to staying out at a dull party, to having guests stay a day or two too long.

So they tell me.

In the meantime, I received advice from a priest to spend just five minutes a day taking mental tally of how many things about my life are really good right now.  Don’t necessarily do it first thing in the morning, either, he said.  Do it at midday, or in the evening, or whenever that particular moment is when you feel like chipping off your fingernails with a screwdriver.  In taking stock of God’s blessings, we’re reminded of His presence in our life.  After all, health, children, prosperity, and employment are the kinds of things we don’t get through our tiny effort alone.  Once I’m that far into the thought process, I usually find myself realizing that the fingernails and screwdrivers are also blessings and I’ll be darned if I don’t suddenly discover I’m praying.

But even that small advice seems to require a huge amount of discipline.  I probably wouldn’t have spent the five minutes today, except I was thinking about the advice because I wanted to use it in this post.  It’s so much easier to just go to sleep (my house is so clean when I’m asleep) or take a walk (my children are so quiet when I’m not around them) or eat a snack (my pajamas are very slimming).  Where does the initial discipline come from?  What gets you out of the rut in the first place?  It can’t be the regular sort of effort.  I’ve put cars in the mud before, and I know very well that ordinary effort got them in there.  It takes extraordinary effort to get them out.

This morning, my husband attempted to jump start me.  He said, “Look around at the good people you know.  See their lives, their habits, their happiness.  Think to yourself, I want to be like them.  I want what they have.  And imitate.  Perfection is a process, and not an event.”

[author] [author_image timthumb='on']http://www.ignitumtoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Joseph-and-Jennifer-Mazzara-e1313150981219.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Joseph and Jennifer Mazzara are a young, married Catholic couple. Meeting at Christendom College, they wed soon after graduating in 2008. God has blessed them with two sons! Jennifer now raises them, teaches piano and runs the local chapel’s RCIA program. Joseph joined the Marines. Their websites are The Three B’s, Midnight Radio.[/author_info] [/author]

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About the Author ()

Jennifer Mazzara has been a Catholic for 26 years, and a blogger for 6. She is a mother of two beautiful little men and shares her daytime with them playing with trains or just watching the world go by outside our door. Her big man is in the United States Marine Corps, and her family's life in the the military couldn't be more blessed. She blogs at Midnight Radio.
  • John J

    Well said. Sometimes i get pissed off at life, and then suddenly look at my life, and then I get pissed off at myself for getting pissed off at life. Because honestly? I’ve got it absurdly good. Most of us do if we take the time to actually look.

  • Cait

    My Dad is a professional actor. I learned one great lesson from his career. Fake it :-) Our family was always invited to parties to liven them up. Because no matter how bored we were we’d been taught to fake enthusiasm. Good manners in general have gone out the window to be replaced with “being real” but basically good manners are faking charity towards others when you don’t feel it. Turns out this faking it can apply to a lot of things. I was once very severely depressed, and still struggle with bouts of it. What works to get me out is faking cheerfulness. Eventually it’s not a fake anymore because it’s habit I guess. So I like to work on faking that I’m the kind of housewife and mom I want to be. It’s only rubbing off verrrrrry slowly, but I’m gunna fake it til I make it. All the world’s a stage.

  • http://www.catholicland.blogspot.com SWP

    My wife ends every day with a Happy Thought. She has done this since she was a little girl, she did this all through college, and she does it with our children. We finish our bedtime prayers, we kiss goodnight, and we share our one Happy Thought for the day. There’s an excellent book on this subject titled “Gratefulness the heart of prayer” by Brother Steindl-Rast. Some days I really don’t feel like there was any happy thought, but inevitably, after reviewing the day, I always manage to think of one. And that has improved my whole demeanor when I go to sleep.

  • TLC

    Thanks for this, it was so good! I think sometimes we have forgotten that discipline, and that it’s a good thing, because in the end we DO end up feeling better. When I slack off because I hit the “overwhelming” wall, at the end of the day I am disappointed in myself and can’t sleep, whereas if I at least TRY regardless of how I feel, I sleep well! I also find that if you just start without thinking about how much you have to do or how crazy life’s circumstances are, God comes in and multiplies your time and then you realize, well that wasn’t so bad, was it? But it’s a struggle and ahh…sometimes I get so sick of trying, I just want to BE there already! Have you heard of or read ‘One Thousand Gifts’ by Ann Voskamp? I found that to help. Another thing that helped was a quote my friend told me, similar to that of your husband’s – life is a journey, not a destination (well, we hope to get there in the end and that’s what it’s all about – but not to expect perfection in a day!). Also lots of deep breaths and praying for God’s grace throughout the day! Whew…that was a post in itself! :) God bless you!

  • Perinatal Loss Nurse

    In reading other things you have written, you seem like a deep and committed Catholic person not given to societal whims, but I want for a second to reflect on what society has told you about your stage of life. Even when we try to resist it, the culture we live in does inform us every day, hour, minute…so what is it telling you?

    Our society creates expectations where young adults are encouraged (virtually expected) to be self absorbed…focus on your education, your plans, your hopes etc. Then as a bride you have to fight hard against society telling you to indulge your every wish and whim, its all about YOU!. A first pregnancy is still a very self focused place with the “big shift” coming at the birth of the first baby. That can be a manageable change from before but the arrival of the second baby signifies that you have left the universe of focusing on yourself and are now expected to be profoundly, completely giving and “other focused” 24/7.

    That is a heck of a huge change for anyone to make in a very short period of time. Thank God the Church tries all along to encourage us to not be self absorbed even when society tells you to indulge in it, we have a little bit of advance training, but I argue that this is the very biggest transition you will ever experience in life and its is a great deal of work. Part of the reason its hard is that we hardly ever talk about it, you are supposed to wake up one day and be a perfect, selfless, actualized, wise person when in reality this growth and wisdom takes YEARS. I think this is one reason for postpartum depression.

    To illustrate my point, juxtapose the demands on you with what you see on “Say Yes to the Dress” …society is feeding into their “I WANT” mentality with everything it has. Knowing the demands of a young mom / military spouse can you see that young women are being set up for failure.( Again, thank God we have the Church to keep us grounded!) . When we lived in a nasty little house on an Army base (we were USMC) I used to wonder about the women who had scrubbed that linoleum before me…did life prepare them for what was coming or were they lost in despair over life being much harder than they ever expected? I wonder how many went from doted-on bride to lonely military wife so fast they could hardly reorient themselves.

    I want to encourage 2 things…1.) be kind and gentle to/with yourself… this time of rapid change and growth is hard but you will succeed. 10 years from now you will be coaching new moms and sharing your stories. 2.) Recognize appropriate moments to set healthy limits and say “no”. Too often I’ve seen young moms dump upon themselves an expectation that they accommodate to everyone, about everything all the time. That is a recipe for disaster. I found the capacity to say no to employers, my parents & inlaws, my kids and all the other people in life who tried to make demands on me (learning when and how to send a bratty child back home when you have had your fill is a wonderful skill). So your comment about staying out at a dull party, no..go home.

    Blessings to you, you will do this but these growing pains ARE real. (can I say a 3rd time thank God we have the Church to keep us grounded!)

  • Richard

    As a single male in his 60′s when I read “’s so much easier to just go to sleep (my house is so clean when I’m asleep)” I about fell out of my chair laughing, my least favorite job but one that gets accomplished. Why is it easier to find something on a cluttered desk than it is in a organized book case?
    But overall, this writing made me think of the ‘examination of conscience’ that I do each night before I call it a day and head into night prayer.
    Keep the Good News coming ladies, I need all the help I can get :-)

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