Lessons Learned

I can't even believe that in 5 days a huge truck will be parked in front of my house waiting to be packed with all of our belongings. We have been here at Ft. Rucker 2 years and 1 month. I have learned so much about myself and about my life while we've been here.

Lessons Learned.....

1 :
"Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same." - Francesca Reigler

Oh how this statement is sooooooo true!!!! I'm sad to say that I spent the first year of our lives here dwelling on the things that I missed. I missed home, family, friends, good restaurants, shopping, walking into a grocery store where I was bound to see a familiar face, all the things that made me feel secure. I found myself over looking all the wonderful things that I've been blessed with. I changed my way of thinking and made the choice to be happy. It made all the difference in the world. I began to look at things in a completely different way. Of course I still missed all the things I mentioned before BUT you can miss those things and still be happy..... DUH!!! Sad that I am a slow learner. :) Better late than never though..... right???

2 :
"Dwelling on the negative only contributes to its power." - Shirley MacLaine

This goes hand in hand with lesson #1. I learned that negative attitudes truly are contagious. I now realize how grateful I am for the friends that truly practice positive thinking. That attitude is also contagious. Surrounding yourself with positive people is key to living happily. I have set a new goal to be a positive thinker.... this is actually very hard for me. I'm not necessarily as much a negative thinker as I am a worrier. I find myself always planning for the worst and hoping for the best..... time to work on that I think.

3:
"Criticism is an indirect form of self boasting." - Emmet Fox

Living on a military installation brings people from anywhere and everywhere. Sometimes those people may think or act differently than me or have completely different priorities.

Sometimes it can be hard to look deeper and see past the differences. I have learned a lot about myself while dealing with a vast variety of people. I have a particularly hard time with people who portray themselves as "better than" or "smarter than" others. It may seem hard to believe but until now I did not know that this particular characteristic in people bothered me so much. It is extremely easy to take a look at those people and point out every single thing that does not make them "better than" or "smarter than" others. I realized the other day that in doing that I was in no way acting any different than those people. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Who am I to point out flaws in anyone? I definitely have plenty of my own to work on.

I am actually extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to learn this lesson about myself.

4:
"If our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever permanently go wrong." - Howard W Hunter

This is a lesson that I am just beginning ... and will continue to learn through out my life I am sure.

Those of you who know me very well at all know that I am a girl who needs a plan. I have nicely formed lists in designated notebooks that I keep in my pantry. I am not spontaneous. I rarely do something that I know nothing about. Because of these characteristics I have found it particularly difficult to leave here and embark on our next phase of life with a very sketchy plan.

I can't tell you the feeling of peace I felt when I read the quote from Howard W. Hunter. Tears filled my eyes and I overwhelmingly felt that my Heavenly Father loves me and he loves my sweet family. He wants me to be happy and successful. He has given me everything that I truly need to be happy. What more can I ask for? We may have struggles.... let me rephrase that.... we WILL have struggles but, "if our lives and our faith are centered on Jesus Christ and his restored gospel, nothing can ever permanently go wrong."

5:
"Crisis or transition of any kind reminds us of what matters most. In the routine of life, we often take our families—our parents and children and siblings—for granted. But in times of danger and need and change, there is no question that what we care about most is our families!" -M Russell Ballard

We have definitely not experienced anything closely relating to a crisis while we've been here. However we have experienced many times of transition and change. One of the greatest lessons that I have learned is .... that within the walls of my own home lie the things that matter most. I will try my hardest to make sure that there will never be a time where I let "things" or "circumstances" that I cannot change take my focus away from the people who matter most.

I'm so grateful to leave here knowing that I am stronger than I think and that I can do hard things when I have to and I will be ok.