TMT011 - What a burden waking up is

Listen to Episode 11 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

Camilla bouncing around

Raise your hands if you pull Matt Tricks!

Cute baby's can pull Matt Tricks too!
(even if in their diapers)

The Matt Trick

Check out the Morning Routine app for android or the Barcode Alarm app for iPhone. These allow you to program in a barcode, like off your tub of toothpaste or anything, as the trigger to turn off your alarm. You can also set up a routine with a series of steps you do in the morning to turn off alarms. For example, 5:30 alarm rings, scan toothpaste, podcast app opens (listen to podcasts while getting ready), 5:45 alarm rings, silence alarm in office, personal prayer/meditation, 5:55 alarm rings, reading app opens, 6:15 alarm rings, calander/todo list opens, etc. you get the idea!

I even thought it might be a fun challenge to have one sequence step trigger be a barcode a mile down the road on a telephone pole I have to run to, but I haven't done that...yet.

Goal Line

OhLife has been okay this week. I was 100% in writing each day, but as far as recording anything interesting: meh. Even using the prompt “How have I seen the hand of God in my life today,” I still don’t think I wrote anything that great half the days, though I did always have something to write, which was good.

I guess this is something that really takes time to develop. Elder Eyering, in his talk that I mentioned last week, said that his eyes really opened up over time of writing in his journal and recording the blessings in his life. So I’ll continue receiving and replying to my OhLife.com emails and over time we’ll see how things develop.

I ran my longest distance ever this week of 16 miles. And even more, I did it on a work day and went to work afterwards AND DIDN’T DIE!! But it was close.

I’m not going to add any new goals, but I’ll just keep using my morning routine app and trying to get to bed on time. I feel like I’ve setup some great habits or at least they’re forming, so I want to keep those going.

Matt-spiration Moment

Last April in LDS General Conference, Elder David Bednar told a story about a husband and wife. Though the wife was skeptical, the man wanted to buy a four-wheel-drive truck. He even appealed to his wife saying, “Honey, what if there’s a terrible snow storm, and we have to get milk for the children, and the only way we could make it would be in a four-wheel-drive truck!” Teasingly the wife responded, “If we buy a truck, we won’t be able to afford milk, in stormy or fair weather!”

After further counseling together, they decided to buy the truck. Wanting to show his wife how useful and manly the truck was, he drove up to the mountains to chop and bring home some firewood. Though it hadn’t snowed down in town, there was a considerable amount of snow up in the mountains. The truck responded well in four-wheel-drive, but the man pressed his luck a little too far down the rough trail and got stuck in the snow on the side of the road and was unable to get himself out.

He thought while he was there, he might as well chop and stack the firewood into the back of his truck as he had planned. After completely filling his truck with the heavy load, he tried once more to unstick his truck. This time as he gently eased down on his gas pedal, the truck moved slowly forward through the snow and eventually back onto the road.

Quoting Elder Bednar as he draws the conclusion from the story:

It was the load. It was the load of wood that provided the traction necessary for him to get out of the snow, to get back on the road, and to move forward. It was the load that enabled him to return to his family and his home.

Reflecting on this story makes me think about the loads and burdens that I have in my life right now--my trials, my weaknesses, my responsibilities with work, school, family, and church. And while I often feel like I’ve got too much on my plate and a to-do list with items dating back from more than a year ago, it’s this load that helps us to move forward and progress.

Now think about what truly brings us happiness. Not the fleeting bursts of dopamine that our brains get when we bite into a candy bar or when we get a notification that someone “likes” our witty comment on Facebook. If happiness were just a balance of chemicals in the brain, then it seems like the most efficient way to happiness would be to simply keep a steady drip of heroin at a non-lethal dosage. That would keep the happy juice flowing through the brain, right? But it would be vain and empty feeling with no real satisfaction. (side note: drugs are icky and bad and don't do them, like evah, k?)

No, the only way to get meaningful satisfaction and happiness out of life is through personal progression. The making and keeping of goals. Accomplishing tasks even though they’re hard and solving problems without looking at the answers in the back of the book. Fulfilling our responsibilities and serving others brings true fulfillment to our lives. If I were a little more prepared, I could probably cite some kind of study that links happiness to people who accomplished things when compared to people who played video games and updated their Facebook status too much.

But none of these things come freely. They all require effort. They all require the "pulling of a load." But like the story of the man in his 4x4 hauling firewood, the load provides the traction necessary for progression. Without the load, we’d just be spinning our tires unable to make any progress which brings true satisfaction and happiness. Without the load, we might as well check into psych wing at the hospital and ask for the happy pills. (side note again: drugs are still icky and don't do them).

Even though trials and work are necessary for our growth, sometimes the responsibilities of life pile on and push us to the breaking point. Our regular responsibilities get to be too much when combined with trials, personal weaknesses we have to overcome, perhaps personal tragedy, or other life events. At these times, we need to realize that we don’t have to pull the load alone. We only need look to the Savior, Jesus Christ.

In the New Testament he invites:

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28–30).

Quoting again from Elder Bednar’s conference talk:

In essence, the Savior is beckoning us to rely upon and pull together with Him, even though our best efforts are not equal to and cannot be compared with His. As we trust in and pull our load with Him during the journey of mortality, truly His yoke is easy and His burden is light.

We are not and never need be alone. We can press forward in our daily lives with heavenly help. Through the Savior’s Atonement we can receive capacity and “strength beyond [our] own” (“Lord, I Would Follow Thee,” Hymns, no. 220). As the Lord declared, “Therefore, continue your journey and let your hearts rejoice; for behold, and lo, I am with you even unto the end” (D&C 100:12).

When we’re pulling with the Lord and Master of all earth and skies, we’ll never stumble and fall. If we rely upon his grace and do our best to follow his commandments, He’ll never let our loads become more than we can shoulder. He may not take the burdens away, because like I mentioned above, we need those burdens to provide growth, progress, satisfaction, and in the end happiness. But we can take comfort that the load, at least with His help, will always move us forward towards our end goal, back to Him.

TMT010 - Oh Life, how can I record you?

Listen to Episode 10 of The Matt Trick in the player above or download it.

Oliver and Camilla pulling a Matt Trick

Oliver assisting in T-Shirt design

The Matt Trick

OhLife.com is a great way to get an email every day, or every week, or whenever you want to remind you to write in your journal. To create a journal entry, simply reply to the email. Super simple and convenient. No more excuses for not doing it! You can even attach pictures. Totally free, and totally awesome.

The Five Minute Journal provides some excellent prompts for what to fill your OhLife journal with. Or you can pony up and buy a nice looking hard cover journal from them too, I guess.

Goal Line

I've set OhLife to send me an email every day this week. I want to respond to it and create a journal entry every day this week. I'll probably bring it back down to once every week (which I've been doing for the past few years) but this one week, I'll try every day. I'll write using the prompts in the Five Minute Journal, or the prompt I reference in the Matt-spirational Moment below.

Matt-spiration Moment

Right now, up at Thunder Mountain near Provo, UT, my extended family is all together at the Bert N. Whitney Annual Family Reunion. These reunions have been happening longer than I have been alive and they've been regularly up at Thunder Mountain for about twenty years now. One thing my Aunts have helped us keep at high priority is Family History. And much of that family history comes from personal journals and accounts of our ancestors. And when I say ancestors, it's not just people from 20 generations back boarding the Mayflower or something far removed that I might have trouble relating to, but stories from my parents' and grandparents' lives. I'm grateful to have these stories and this history from my family to enjoy and reread and share with my children throughout my life.

One such story that my kids have enjoyed hearing is about an outing that my grandpa, Bert Whitney, took his five older children on one June in 1960. My grandma, Ann Whitney who was pregnant, stayed home with the baby and toddler. The outing was to Red Rock Canyon to climb a mountain and catch a glimpse of "Hidden Lake." This being the Mojave Desert in Southern Nevada, seeing water must have been a special treat for the family. During the hike, my dad, age 9, and his brother Clark, age 7, went on ahead of the pack. Even with careful warnings and instructions from my Grandpa, the boys didn't find the right spot, so they started climb back down. But the descent was steep and the sandstone was slippery. My dad stepped on a rock ledge that crumbled and broke, and as he tumbled down the side of the mountain, he yelled, "This is the end of meeeee."

Everything turned out alright in the end and my dad was helicoptered away to get his broken leg patched up. My poor grandma was left in the dark wondering where her family was, since even though my grandpa asked the sheriff to contact her, somehow the task was overlooked, but she eventually learned about the incident on the evening news. But my dad came out okay. His picture appeared in the paper and he was even the centerpiece of a parade with his cast later that summer.

So what if there was no record of this? The only thing I knew about this story before I read about it in one of the books my Aunts put together is that my dad would jokingly talk about “the time I fell off the cliff.”

Henry B. Eyering, an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, tells of a habit he acquired when his children were young. One time his father rendered a significant service to his young family, though he easily could have left it undone, or even at least had it delegated to someone else. In Elder Eyering’s own words:

“...thinking of what he was doing for us, and just as I got to the door, I heard in my mind—not in my own voice—these words: 'I’m not giving you these experiences for yourself. Write them down.'  

Continuing on he says,

“I wrote down a few lines every day for years. I never missed a day no matter how tired I was or how early I would have to start the next day. Before I would write, I would ponder this question: ‘Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us or our children or our family today?’ As I kept at it, something began to happen. As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.”

He taught that as he continued in this habit of journal writing, he grew an attitude of gratitude and was ever able to see God blessing his family and that their prayers were always heard and answered. As his children grew, he continued writing without missing a day. And to show from it, he was able to publish a copy of the journal for each of his children who, now as adults, will surprise him by saying things like, “Dad, I was reading the journal and remember that time…”

The experiences we have in this life are meant to test us, teach us, and help us grow. But the experiences are not just for us. By writing them down in a habit of daily journaling, we are creating a record that can be cherished by our families, perhaps even for generations to come.

Most of us spend plenty of time writing down silly things on Facebook for our “friends” to see like, “LOL, feel fat after eating bacon samwhich, #omnomnom”. Doesn’t it make more sense to record things of a little bit more significance in a medium slightly more enduring? And as you take time to reflect and write, thinking along the lines of prompts such as, “How has the hand of God touched my life today?” or any of the other prompts in the Five Minute Journal, you’ll feel a deeper sense of gratitude and love for life. That life will be better and more richly lived, and your family will benefit from your experiences as well.