Where’s Your Focus?

A couple months ago I decided to sign up for a trip to Nepal. I left on August 26^th and I have been here ever since. It is a humanitarian trip. We are currently working on many projects to help the lives and people of Nepal.

August 26^th has a lot of special meaning to me now. In 2014, it was the day I finished my 18-month church mission in Houston, Texas. And now in 2016, it is the day that I left for a 3-month humanitarian trip to Nepal. I was sitting in the Hong Kong airport a week ago, on my way to Nepal, thinking about and comparing these two very different trips I will have taken in my life.

Both types of missions are very difficult in their own particular ways. Definitely they are both meant to stretch and strengthen you mentally and emotionally. Sometimes physically.

**Every day in Nepal we get to climb a half mile up a hill. And in Texas we would ride bikes all day sometimes.

While I was on my mission in Texas it became very clear that a lot of the missionaries were there for some very different reasons. Some of them came because they thought it would be a good learning experience for them. Some of them came to “find themselves”. Some of them were there because they wanted to help others. And then there were a few that came because they “thought it would be fun.”

Let’s be clear on this. Missions are not meant to be fun. They are designed to be hard. They are meant to stretch you, to grow you, and to teach you. If you are looking for a good time, there are a million and one other ways to find that. Of course the missions can still be really fun if you decide to have them be. But if your complete focus is just on having fun than you are going to be sorely disappointed and you will accomplish nothing.

And that goes for anything in life! If you are going to your job every day hoping to just have fun, well good luck! Or raising children. Or going to college. Or learning a new skill. Fun can be found every day in life and in every area, but it is not our focus. It is an extra that you choose to add in.

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I also want to compare one other thing in your focus on life. With those missions, you will notice that there were some people focused on what the mission could bring to them (what they could learn, or "finding themselves"), while others were focused on what they could bring to the mission. Wasn’t it John F. Kennedy who said, “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country”?

Well that is a total life principle! Are you going through life looking for what it can bring to you? Are you coming on a mission looking to see what you can gain?

That’s the best way to gain absolutely nothing. It may seem little, but it makes the hugest difference. 

In order to find yourself, you've got to lose yourself first. In order to help yourself, you've got to help others. And in order to learn, you've got to teach.

Are you looking at all the people around you and wondering about their lives? Or are you looking at them and just seeing how they fit into yours? Are they a passerby on the street? Or are they a real person to you with real emotions and difficulties?

Focusing on what you can gain from these missions and other learning experiences in life can be a bit of a good thing, but only just a tiny bit. It is certainly not the best thing. When you’re focused inward, even in that way, it becomes very difficult to see past the end of your nose into the lives of the people around you. Even though I know you have the best intentions in wanting to better yourself.

Think about bettering the lives of others instead. “Forget yourself and go to work” said Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

In that way, you will gain so much more. But you won’t really realize it until you start looking back because you’re so focused on what the others around you are gaining in their own journeys. 

So figure out why you are where you are in your life.

Figure out where you’re going and why.

And then figure out if your focus and goals are really in that direction.

If it’s pointed inward at all than it is the wrong direction.

Tara Howard

Copyright September 2016