You Are Lovable and Capable

A great friend of mine told me recently that we humans need to believe we are both lovable and capable to function well in life. If you give your children the message that they are lovable, but not capable, then they can be paralyzed by challenges that they have never faced before and have no confidence in. If your children get the message they are capable, but not lovable, they will end up doing, doing, doing, without ever having the ability to slow down, take a break, and feel a bit of happiness. If you give your children neither, they will have neither the confidence to attempt the new nor the belief that whatever they do, there is a soft place for them to land.

Guess which problem I have? Me, with my list of accomplishments? I believe I can do anything. I tip my hat to my parents for that. No matter what job there was around the house: painting, changing the oil on the car, pouring cement for steps, or tarring the roof--we could figure out how to do that. My dad modeled this well in particular. Jobs didn't get done always the right way, but they got done and he didn't often think he had to wait for someone else to come and help him figure things out. But perhaps because he himself did not believe he was lovable unless he was working, I think he left his kids with the impression that if we weren't doing something, we weren't justifying our existence.

There is a particular song in Mormonism where we used to sing, "Only he who does something is worthy to live" (the words have been changed now for obvious reasons). There are sure a lot of old Mormon songs about getting jobs done. We are good at that part. At working on perfecting ourselves. But the standing still, watching the sunset, enjoying life, believing that we matter despite mistakes--that's a lot harder.

Now my dad wonders why he has 11 children who all suffer with one form or another of workaholism. We are so like him. Capable, but not always lovable.