I have this bad habit. I don’t think I had it as a child. I seem to have developed it in my youth, and it has only gotten worse as I have grown into single adulthood. What is this habit I am talking about? I am always trying to do too much. I put so much on my plate that I either can’t do it all and then end up beating myself up over it. Or, I do manage to do it all, and get so burned out that I crash and am worthless for a period of time afterwards.
I am told that this is a problem that most women suffer from. As women, we naturally have a lot that we have to juggle in our lives. Even more so once we are married and have children and a household for which we are responsible. Maybe that is why God blessed us with the wonderful ability to multi-task. And yet the more I develop that ability, the worse this problem seems to become, not better. It seems as if the more I can handle the more I load myself down with things to do.
Sometimes I wonder if this is just what God expects of me, and that I just need to learn how to handle. But this isn’t what God wants of his children, especially his daughters. President Gordon B. Hinckley the 15th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormons) said to the women of the church,
“I feel to invite women everywhere to rise to the great potential within you. I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. I hope you will not nag yourselves with thoughts of failure. I hope you will not try to set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. I hope you will simply do what you can do in the best way you know. If you do so, you will witness miracles come to pass.” President Gordon B. Hinckley
The Lord doesn’t expect us to do more then we are able. He just wants us to do our best.
This requires us to prioritize our responsibilities and commitments to see what needs to be done now, and what can be done later. As President Hinckley once counseled, we can do everything, just not all at once. There is a proper time and season for everything. We need to use wisdom to see what the proper time, and the season for each responsibility in our life is.
This lesson was reemphasized in my mind the other night as I read in the Book of Mormon,
“And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order.” Mosiah 4:27
I hope that we can all learn how to use wisdom and order in how we handle the responsibilities in our lives and that we can be diligent, and yet healthy in all we endeavor to do. I feel that this way, we can all win the prize.
