Let's Talk about my Character Flaws

I'm plotting how to exile the parts of my character that I have become tired of tolerating.

First on the list to go: my immaturity and my lack of self-discipline. When I was 23 I considered how I reacted to events at the age of 18 and thought to myself, "Wow, I was so immature then", and then at 26 I thought the same thing about my behavior at 23, and now I think the same about my behavior at 26, and someday I will be thinking the same thing about my behavior now. And self-discipline? Don't even get me started. The only way I can maintain self-respect some days is to remind myself that I am an avid teeth flosser, and that everyone probably has some areas in which they are very disciplined and other areas where they struggle.

So I've concluded that being a human being is really frustrating sometimes. Sometimes I feel frustrated not because I have any notions of being awesome 100% of the time, but because my immaturity and lack of self-discipline hurts other people's feelings, and that's not consistent with the type of person I want to be. Luckily, I have Marcos to remind me that even though I feel like some of our conversations are just repeats of the same disagreements we had when we got married four years ago, when we delve into glimpses of then vs. now, we can see significant change and improvement. It's just that on a day by day basis, character change is largely imperceptible.

On Sunday I taught a Relief Society lesson from a talk given by Jeffrey R. Holland called "Remember Lot's Wife", and I am still pondering his ideas. It's about taking from our past the things that will make us better people, and focusing on our futures to become who we want to be. I especially love that he stresses that when you believe in Jesus Christ, and you believe that his atonement has the power to help people change and evolve and become something greater, then our responsibility is to let buried problems remain buried, and to forgive each other and ourselves, and allow each other the freedom to change. He says, "Is it faith? Yes! Is it hope? Yes! Is it charity? Yes! Above all, it is charity."