I recently was surprised when several of my colleagues at work were offended by something I said on facebook. At first I was confused about what I had done wrong. To summarize, I stated an inconvenient truth that several of them perceived had reference to their own deficiencies. This is a problem for me because they stand between me and advancement in my career. What makes the problem more complex is that I don’t know who the snitch was or how far the information has been distributed. All I know is that I feel as if I’m figuratively in the crosshairs and it’s making me nervous. When I was an undergraduate, getting ready to enter my career, I felt like a lot was in my power. I got to choose my classes, I felt like I could control my level of commitment and performance. Once I entered my career, I didn’t have as much choice and I was really just expected to show up and do as I was told. It is still that way to a degree, but it’s changing. I truly forgot what it is like to have the freedom to choose. This freedom is something I learned about in Mormonism, but ironically, Mormonism often encouraged me to just fall in line instead of weighing the pros and cons before making a decision.
I’m working on taking more control of my decisions, not only in my career but in other aspects of my life as well. In my career, I’ve spent so much of my time and energy feeling powerless. I’ve shed far too many tears convinced that I can’t do anything about my problems. I was wrong to believe that. I can’t control the way other people react to me on facebook. I can’t control the demands placed on me at work. But I can control the way I solve my problems, and some of my problems may not even actually exist the way my mind has presented them. In the words of old Lucifer, “You are beginning to see already!”
After getting some valuable advice and sympathy from a colleague regarding the facebook fiasco, I realized that over the last ten years, the amount of control I have over my life has changed tumultuously from year to year and I have been suffering (for the most part) silently without even really being able to consciously acknowledge how losing control was harming my mental health. First, it was serving a mission for the church. I had to give up numerous personal freedoms for the chance to pay my dues to the church by recruiting new Mormons. Strangely enough, relinquishing personal freedoms to follow the white bible was easy for me and in some ways, comforting. Next, it was quickly getting married after my mission. Next, it was obediently welcoming the responsibility of parenthood not once, but four times within six years. After graduating college, it was the struggle of finding sufficient employment with limited employable professional skills. Next, it was subjecting myself to the ordeals collectively known as graduate school, hoping that the graders would have mercy and let me graduate quietly at the bottom of my class. After one too many traumatic experiences interacting with the faculty, I was ready to give up. But my colleague reminded me that I can’t control other people. Once I realized how much has been out of my control, I was able to appreciate the things “as they really are”. I will finish graduate school. I will find a new world where I have more control over what I do or don’t do. The church hasn’t controlled me for a long time. Graduate school will only control me for a short time before it’s over. My kids may try and control me but that generally isn’t very successful for them. It’s time to place more emphasis on the things I can control and accept what I can’t. I may not have any supernatural powers as a safety net but at least I finally figured out the source of my despair.
unfairmormon 