Tuesday, December 28, 2010

#7 To-Do

Read the book What I Wish I Knew When I was Single: How to do Life as a Young Adult.


This should be a high school graduation requirement, or at least seminary graduation requirement. Popular LDS speaker, John Bytheway, is a great author and adds a nice humorous tone to a difficult and sometimes painful topic. I had a friend who read this book after a broken engagement and she felt like it was her saving grace through that difficult time.

One excerpt from the book:
"If you're a young woman, you turn and face the world with many options. Suddenly you must make decisions. You're on your own and it's your big chance on life's stage. Ready or not, it's time to fly solo."
He has the book broken up into different sections. It begins with the post high-school phase and what it means to be living on your own and some suggestions of ways to handle that. He explains that part of the reason being a single adult is so difficult is because you feel like you aren't living the commandments. We have been taught our whole lives that the most important successes we have will be within a family environment and so when we are working towards a marriage relationship and it suddenly ends, it is very painful. We see our friends getting married and having children and we get constant "motivation" from our parents, neighbors, and peers that it is our time to do the same thing. However, this complicated part of life is the only commandment that is not completely in our control, which can make it harder than some of the others. But the best thing we can do when we're not in a relationship is to focus on what we can control. You still control your happiness and agency. This is still your life, whether it is how you imagined it or not. John Bytheway suggests, taking a careful inventory of current habits and change the things about you that might be pushing people away. Don't focus on what you can't control, but rather make improvements for your future.

The book is available at several libraries, but I did find a few on amazon for a very nice price.

1 comment:

  1. Once again so spot on and i full heartedly agree. We have agency. we can chose to be happy. Like you said at the end "this is our life whether it is how we imagined or not." Love that line and it is so true. This will only help me keep pushing through!

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