This weekend, however, I realized that I have been neglecting my favorite box. Instead, a new box has taken its place. It is covered with shiny gold paper, and it seems to promise fantastic treasures and happiness for every moment of the day.
This box is what I like to call the Successful Person box.
I first saw people using this box when I started attending public school in my junior year of high school. At first, I was a little confused and overwhelmed by the new box, but it looked bigger and prettier than my When I Grow Up box, which seemed old-fashioned in comparison. In the new box, careers and lifestyles were deemed successful by how much money and influence it carried. Get-rich-quick books were recommended. The only numbers that mattered were our IQ, GPA, and ACT score. But if these were high and your career was both influential and high on income, the box was yours. Everyone was after it, and so I started to go after it too. Nothing would satisfy me but the most successful test scores, and my reading time began to be focused on books in the Successful Person box. I didn't enjoy them much, but I was sure that I would achieve the happiness which the Successful Person box promised me.
Except... it didn't pay up. I couldn't understand it. All of my life I had been taught that imperfection was to be expected, that it was ok. But I began to doubt it. If I wasn't happy, it must be because I wasn't "successful" enough. I tried harder and harder, expecting more and more of myself. I stopped opening my When I Grow Up box -- trying to be successful was taking up too much time. Soon, it was more common for me to be tired than happy. I couldn't push myself any farther, and I started to believe that it was simply impossible for me to be successful.
I ended up graduating high school with the confident belief that I just couldn't be successful, and that reaching for the stars was quite foolish. I found the smallest, easiest-to-apply-to college that I could, decided to try for interior decorating for the sole reason that I'd only have to go to school for two years, and walked through life with my head hanging low.
I had reached adulthood, and I had no idea what I wanted to be.
At this point, I had hit rock bottom. And, as I had been taught since childhood, I hit it on my knees.
Dear Reader, prayer is a beautiful thing. The fact that I can talk with my Father in Heaven, an all-powerful, all-knowing God... It never ceases to amaze me. He is always there. I know this to be true. As I prayed, God began to take my life into his hands in a beautiful, painful way.
First, he took the education plan I had carefully created and tossed it down the drain. He did the same to every new plan I made.
It hurt. I was confused.
Then He told me not to go on an LDS mission yet, and I was released from my leadership calling in the LDS church.
It hurt. I was confused.
Every source of income I had fell through.
It hurt. I was confused.
In the course of just a few months, God stripped away every single "successful" part of my life.
Then He began to rebuild out of the rubble.
Frankly, it was -- and is -- a slow and painful work. There are still parts of me that are attracted to the shiny gold paper of the Successful Person box. However, I am rediscovering my When I Grow Up box. I have uncovered my love for teaching children and reading classics. After a season of waiting, I am now working on my mission papers, nervous and excited for a year and a half of service dedicated to my Lord and King -- my Savior, Jesus Christ. I have found that Faith is more important than Success, Hope is more important than Productivity, and Charity is more important than Influence. Because, in the end, these are what bring us back to our Father in Heaven.
And that, Dear Reader, is the most beautiful success of all.
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