The Beginning of the Rest of My Life

I had an epiphany the other day that I want to attempt to put in the words.

You see, when I was a child, I was very me-centered. I feel like my focus/perspective gradually widened to include family and friends and maybe a little bit of the world as I grew up and went to school. Yet I was still quite self-centered. In college, as much as I would've liked to think that I wasn't, my focus was still on me. I got a brief taste of other-centeredness when I served as a missionary, and it felt like a breath of fresh air to not just be focused on me all the time.

Right now I'm entering a new phase of life--instead of studying, I have started my career as a school teacher! I spend probably 14 hours a day actively preparing to teach and teaching 28 ten and eleven year-olds. I'm constantly thinking about how to teach and help them. Even when I'm not at school, they're on my mind. At Thanksgiving, when I was "resting", I was thinking about them. When I can't sleep at night, my mind goes to them. Sometimes I wonder if it's unhealthy, but I'm constantly thinking about my "kids."

At times I feel overwhelmed/frustrated and want to have time for me. I expressed that feeling to my mom, who is also a school teacher. She said something to the effect of, "Well, Sabrina, just wait until you're a mother! It's going to be like this but more so." At the moment, that thought overwhelmed me even more, and I wondered if I would be able to do the whole motherhood thing. But I've been thinking about the concept ever since.

I wonder if life is a gradual opening of our perspective from self to others. I wonder if our experiences and progression from school to career to family is supposed to be a path to being other-centered. My career makes me think of others all the time, but I DO still have time to think about myself. But then I'm going to get married and have a husband to think about and care for...and then children! I could be selfish and think of this as a negative thing (indeed that is the message that the world is telling women), or I could have an eternal perspective and think of this as an exciting part of my progression--to becoming what I am supposed to become. It makes me think of the progression beyond the grave... my goal is to become as Heavenly Father and thus have infinite posterity. I will have tons of spirit children to be thinking about all the time. Does God think of himself very often? I think he spends all of his time being concerned with the eternal life of his children. It is an endless process of becoming less concerned with self and more concerned with others. And in losing ourselves, we will find ourselves. So I think that me being wrapped up with my 28 kiddos is the humble beginning of a long journey to being completely, happily other-centered.