Become What you Deserve

I recently sent this picture to three friends of mine:

I said to them, “How you know when you’re officially an old dad – your recommended videos on YouTube. Just letting you guys know so you can start to see the signs.”

My recommended videos on YouTube are –

1. 12 hours of White Noise Black Screen (so I can sleep)
2. Live Elmo compilation (so Ivy can be entertained)
3. 12 hours of Dog TV (so Bengie can be entertained)

One of my friends responded, “I’ll keep that in mind if I ever find a partner.”

These three friends are in various relationship statuses, mostly in the bachelor spectrum. That comment from my close friend made me think. I wanted to respond with something semi-productive. I didn’t want to give a normal, mean, insulting, and joking answer.

I responded, “Step 1 – Take steps towards making yourself someone you’d want to date.”

This got me thinking. I tell Beth all the time, if she met me when I was 19-24, she would not have been able to stand me. There’s very little chance she would have had interest in me. She would have thought I was an obnoxious, selfish, immature child. I could easily put some more disparaging adjectives there, but I’ll go easy on myself.

In our lives we always want the best for ourselves. We want a beautiful, intelligent, well-spoken, funny, fun, giving, kind, patient person we can trust and who has their life together. That’s what we want for ourselves. I know that’s what I always wanted. The problem was, that’s the kind of girl from the age of 19-24 I was looking for, meanwhile I was none of those things myself.

How can we expect to find a partner we love and respect for all their great qualities if we haven’t developed those qualities for ourselves?

I’m still working on those qualities, but I hope that my journey back to church helped me to develop some of those qualities a little more. I had to take concrete, real, small steps towards making myself a better person to find a partner I always felt I “deserved,” though lacking the evidence of deserving anything. My behavior for those few years (19-24) was selfish, half-hazardous, and chaotic. No wonder I found myself in selfish, half-hazard, and chaotic relationships.

My point is, we don’t just find a phenomenal partner. We earn a phenomenal partner by being those very qualities we want in a partner. Again, no chance Beth gives me a second glance when I’m 22. But through changing a plethora of bad habits I became a person someone like Beth – a beautiful, intelligent, well-spoken, funny, fun, kind and patient individual with her life together – would give a chance.

Don’t expect to find a great partner if you haven’t developed great qualities in yourself. This doesn’t happen over night. It’s a conscious and effort-filled journey to impvove oneself. Sometimes it’s hard to be introspective and address the qualities in oneself that aren’t the best. I know it was hard for me.

I’m still working every day to be a husband that deserves a wife like Beth. Now I have the added motivation to be a father that raises a daughter with good qualities. It’s my greatest desire for Ivy to be kind, and smart, and confident, and bold.

Start making the steps. Find one habit you can change. Be better tomorrow than you were yesterday. Through small and simple steps great things can, and will, happen.

For more on change, Beth gave a great talk on change that I shared here.

Also, Elder Kevin S. Hamilton gave a talk in last General Conference (eerily similar to Beth’s) on change, which can be read here.