Hey, who else pissed away two valuable years of their lives?
(I'm posting a lot today. It is holiday season and the workload is extreeeeemly light. Many of our people have already started the holidays and the military commanders have gone to minimum manning, so... Sorry I'm all over RfM today.)
Anyway, it's no secret that I am an old man. I should be retired. I am the 2nd oldest in our huge building of a couple thousand people. The other guy is a government executive who makes a huge salary and he has already said that will go on forever. As for me, I want to retire. Now. But I can't. I have two more years, and now I can't give up the thought that I would have been there already save for my stupid mission.
Those of us who did a full 18 months to 2 years gave up that time of normal development and time that could have been spent doing important things. The primary thing would be coming 2 years closer to finishing one's education. I missed many other things, not the least of which was what I call "normal sexual development." I also missed out on all the rock music. I felt so stupid coming home and not knowing what people were talking about when they mentioned "Kent State" and this "Woodstock" thing. And what the blue f*ck was "Credence Clearwater Revival??" And "Led Zeppelin?" And why was it spelled wrong?
Re-matriculating at BYU in the so-called "block" (a short semester cobbled together specifically to allow missionaries to come back and occupy desk space), I was forced to take nonsensical and worthless classes for which I had to spend real money.
My girlfriend at BYU would not consider marrying me unless I went on a mission, so part of my going was to prove to her and others that I had the mettle it took to be a good future Mormon leader. I was into only my 7th month on my mission when she began sleeping with a guy who never went on a mission and had impregnated his girlfriend before her. It was one of the great WTF?? moments of my life.
But all that pettiness aside, I could be retired now and would not be in this situation of having to wait until October 2016. I really did piss away that time, didn't I? *slaps head repeatedly* Idiot!-idiot!-idiot!
First of all you got to serve in wonderful Italy. Things were still good and the Anni di Piombo were not in full swing, yet.Many Americans of your age were doing another kind of service in a less nice place and in worse conditions. As far as sex, come on, you got married right after your mission if I am not mistaken, you didn't waste so many sexless years. I have a TBM BIL, good looking, good job, RM, and in his mid-30s is not married, can you imagine? THAT is really bad. And he served his mission in Greece... And you have a good job! during which you can spend a good amount of time on RfM. You will be retiring in a nice place and you will do all your favourite things and will not have to worry about your old age. I just bought a used Creedence Clearwater Revival CD today, for 30 Cents at the Diakonie shop. And it doesn't do any good to regret something happened 45 years ago. I can't help regret things that also happened to me a long time ago, like my baptism in 1991, I also tell myself how idiot I was, but it doesn't make me feel better. It is awful.
I biscotti Bucaneve Doria? Oh, I remember them! They were so good. Now my favourite are almost any kind from Mulino Bianco, but especially Pan di Stelle. And because it is the Christmas season, do you prefer panettone of pandoro?
Yeah, you are right, who am I to tell you what you should or should not regret, I have the same problem. I could hit my head on the wall the whole day for the stupidity I had getting baptised at 27! which was the first of a few other regrattable decisions. But all these thoughts suck a lot of energy out of me, that I should rather use in other directions, for other purposes.
That is our on-going discussion right now, now that you bring it up: We will have kids and grand kids in the house for a week. Will our kids want a panetone, or a pandoro? (Both are available at TJ Maxx.) As for me, I prefer a nice coffee with panetone (especially Tre Marie or some other good brand), especially on Christmas morning. But on New Years I want a pandoro sprinkled with powdered sugar, and a hot chocolate. Thick, black hot chocolate just like in an Italian bar. We still don't know. We'll probably get both.
I wasn't making fun of you. You are right, of course. And bad memories do, in fact, suck the life out of you--not a good thing. I think that, for me, it is a kind of personality disorder I have. Somebody here once severely castigated me for my personality disorders, and she was right.
I don't like panettone because of the frutta candita. I don't like frutta candita, but I would eat a good one like Le Tre Marie. I prefer Pandoro, also with lots of powdered sugar, and I am a black tea kind of person. Unfortunately no pandoro this year, I haven't seen any up here.
I'll just eat Marzipan Kartoffeln. I can't stand Lebkuchen anymore, I think I ate too many in the past.
Yeah, "panettone." Sorry about my occasional misspelling. It's not near so bad as my French spelling. Anyway, love it despite the candied fruit. In fact, it may be the only way I like candied fruit.
Marzipan Kartoffeln are small balls of Marzipan, 1.5-2 cm in diameter, covered with a mix of powdered cocoa and cinnamon. They got their name, because even if they are so small they kind of look like potatoes. They taste very good.
I regularly feel remorse for spending the time I did spreading the Big Lie. Im glad that the people I "helped" find the lord have without exception rejected the "word of the lord."
I want the two years of my life back as well. I loved Japan and the people. I just wish it would have been under better circumstances.
I regret lots of stuff - could -a, should -a, would -a. I know its harder to take when you did the right thing for the wrong reason (mission). Mission was the right thing at the time. Hanging in is the right thing now.
Be happy you have a retirement pension. Most people don't.
I have found a couple of keys to living happily with the rest of my life now that I am into the seventh decade: 1. There are no: wouldas, shouldas, couldas, what if's. There is only what "IS" and that is what gave me the experiences that made me who I am today. I have released myself from thinking in terms of: wouldas, shouldas, couldas, what if's. Why? They are self sabotage. Why would I think that I would have or could have done things differently? Another Major Key to living happily: 2: I made the best decisions I knew how at the time with the information I had. When I received/found new and better/ more reliable information, I changed my mind about a lot of things.
I refuse to look back with regret or guilt. More self sabotage.I did what I did and it's done. There is no going back. The past cannot be fixed. I can keep the Good Stuff from the past and continue to use it. I ditch, delete the old worn out stuff that is useless.
I let go of the past and live in the present. Today is all I have. Tomorrow, I'll deal with it when it gets here.
When I look back, I tend to write about things that have taught me something in an autobiographic sketch of some sort. I have written a lot of those off and on. It's helpful to recall the good, wise, helpful, fun, loving, funny times.
Them I pack it all up in an Attitude of Gratitude! I am grateful for a family that could laugh at adversity - find the humor, even in the depression and WW2. I learned that laughter is about love. One of the best ways to reduce stress and be happy is to make a Gratitude List every day in your mind or write it down. Destructive negativity can't get in when appreciation and gratitude are driving the car!
The past is gone. Let it go. Find the fun and laughter and keep that going!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2014 03:28PM by SusieQ#1.
Maybe the most astonishing discovery so far in my three score and four circumcisions 'round the Sun:
Life is Perfect
Think about it. Our passage through (not around) the painful/difficult sufferings of our lives has left us hopefully a little wiser to make less self-destructive choices next time ... or not. Sometimes it takes several head bumps on brick walls before the message gets driven home. But eventually we learn a new trick and Life smooths out a little more for us.
How to Cheat Life:
If you are able to truly internalize the possibility that Life is Perfect, when you are in the midst of difficult, painful times, you can know in advance that what's happening right now is the refiner's fire and you are getting brighter by the minute as you burn away more of the useless baggage that does not serve you. This realization can instantly lower your personal stress and suffering more than you might imagine.
The Mormon Church is Perfect as well. It is helping spiritual infants by stressing them out so much they eventually get fed up with the counterfeit happiness, then break free and take charge of their own lives and their own well-being. The Brethren are doing the membership a huge favor by remaining completely stuck in their never ending Spiritual Dwarfism. If the Church actually progressed spiritually, fewer people would break free of its tentacles to breathe the freshs air of actual spiritual growth and freedom.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2014 05:10PM by beyondashadow.
cludgie Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > But "circumcizing the sun" has a certain thing > about it that I like. We should go with the OP's > original line.
I had a hard time getting past that ... ahh.. spell check error? One of the funniest I have ever seen!! LOL
See.. life is so dang funny, how can anyone not laugh!!
Serving a mission derailed my education for longer than just the two years for a number of reasons. By the time I graduated from college I was much older than my peers, I had several kids, and had significant debt that I would not have had otherwise. Prior to the mission I was making good progress toward my degree and had no immediate interest in getting married. That all changed after spending two years being brainwashed and helping to brainwash others that marriage young and many kids was a good idea.
I didn't learn anything on my mission that I would not have learned in college. There was also a lot of mythical thinking that became more ingrained as a missionary that took years to undo.
I do not regret my mission, but only because it was short-lived and ultimately became the catalyst for my exit from TSCC.
What I do regret is not preparing properly for college; instead, I focused solely on the mission. When it, and my interest in all things religious came to an abrupt halt, I was lost. It took the better part of two years for me to pull myself up and move on with life.
Probably something triggered this regret out of its box way back in the corner of your mind.
As for regrets,at least yours happened years ago. I made an ass out of myself today at my daughter's therapist's office because i was having a hard time dealing with ocd, or mice or both. Now he knows for sure i'm the nutcase that gave my dd OCD, even tho you don't 'catch' it from people. It is however partly genetic. I can sit here feeling stupid.
A hot tea and some laughs on the internet (go read Zillers reviews on Amazon) and your regrets will fade back to their normal glitch spot, instead of taking space front and center of your brain.
I love italian gelato. It's just not the same here in canada, even if it says it's italian.
My mission screwed up my perspective and priorities for years after. The skills that I gained would be most useful in MLMs, which is to say useless to me. I would have been far better off continuing where I left off in AZ. I never liked APs secretly searching my mission journals and reporting it to the MP while I was out tracting. I did like meeting Never-Mos, although I would not appreciate this the same way until seeing the church's truly oppressive nature around a decade later. They spied on me then for similar reasons that they spy on me now; the leaders fear what their members/missionaries might think of them or say. They're also consistently dry on new insightful content, so they have to plagiarize (aka consecrate) it from their members regularly. My mission was such a mistake but I served it honorably. I watched rebel missionaries get called to leadership to help persuade them to want to finish. I would take those two years back in a heartbeat if I could. It was so trumped up by the Provo culture I was in, and the whole RM status thing is such a big social "racket" which can easily be turned against you in compulsive coercions.
WELL, yeah...But I can say that about a lot of things that I have done that don't make sense. Like college. Anytime our path changes, the part the doesn't overlap with the new path is obsolete and wasteful.
Cludgie writes: "I was forced to take nonsensical and worthless classes for which I had to spend real money." That's a good description of BYU.
I wish I hadn't married the BYU football player in the temple, who turned out to be a wife-beater. Fourteen months of hell.
So, rejoice and be glad--that you didn't marry that girl who slept with that guy (or did you marry her, anyway?)
Today was the anniversary of my aunt's wedding, at which she was left at the altar. She still laments about it, every day, and wishes he had married her. I reminded her that she never wanted 8 children. The man was ugly, and older, but he was wealthy. He was arrogant and obnoxious. He gave major contributions to Proposition 8! His wife has been ward and stake RS president. His wife had to live in harsh conditions, when they went on three (3) couples missions. My aunt and her husband (another wealthy man) are ex-Mormons. If she had married the jilter, she would still be a Mormon--or else! She wouldn't have had her two wonderful children she has now.
Maybe you need to meet up with your old girlfriend, who you probably would have married, had the mission not interfered and tested her faithfulness. My aunt and I ran into her old fiancee, at a wedding reception at the JS Building. He was unbearably ugly, and used racial slurs that would make anyone's skin crawl. He was wearing a big diamond pinky ring, and bragged about his condo in Hawaii, near the GA's condos. Still, my aunt called me today, to cry again--really?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/18/2014 02:22AM by forestpal.
That reminds me of something my Mormon ex-wife said. It was hell both ways in my case although you'd never know from her side of the story, and she was such a low self-esteem, constantly flirting, emotionally cheating, immature, selfish, distrustful, lying, traitorous confiding brat who basically never ceased cleaving to her childhood homebodies (example: she'd never take my word on almost anything if it contradicted what her older siblings believed). We both married for the wrong reasons, and the mission was never helpful to me with the pressures for marrying. She got back at me good though, lasting to this day. She got all of my so-called [former] church friends, colleagues, members (known and unknown), neighbors, even my own family members retaliating against me (basically anyone that was Mormon and in the know). Or her exaggerated and biased side of the story was very instrumental in that regard. I regret marrying her as I regret being suckered by the church, and what I became in spite of both, but I never regret the path it put me on being against that church of gossipers, hypocrites liars, and judges.
My own experience never would have occurred were it not for my mission. I strongly believe that.
I could write for days on this topic, and no one would want to read it. I will say that the "missionary program," as my dad calls it, was an unmistakeable cult. I'm still not sure about the church as a whole, at least not for those with decent bishops and stake presidents. But there's no doubt that I was in a miserable cult for two years, and one that diverged in significant ways from official Mormon beliefs and scriptures.
What really floored me was coming home from my mission, feeling relieved, and finding out that the ridiculous demands had only begun. My dad had established his own personal cult, at least in his own mind, and it got worse while I was on my mission. I was one of the first people he identified as an enemy. Hell hath no fury like a judgmental narcissist who gets almost unlimited access to pollute someone's mind with fear.