The Power of "Going To"

We're all busy. Our lives are crazy and involved, and not with just one thing. We'd like to think that our lives revolve around school or work or family, but that's not the case. Just because one aspect of our lives is intense doesn't mean all of the other aspects of our lives fade into the background.

Lately, especially as I've been working on my thesis, I've thought about this. It would be so easy to focus entirely on my schoolwork and neglect all of my other responsibilities, but unfortunately I can't do that. The kitchen still gets dirty, the laundry still piles up, the church choir still has to practice, and I still have to go to the gym. It never ends.

I've really come to enjoy the TV show, "The Middle" on ABC. If you haven't watched it, it's about Frankie Heck, a mother of three who works at a car dealership. It's not only entertaining, but also one of the few shows on primetime TV that's actually entirely clean and wholesome. Anyhow, there was an episode in which Frankie was making an excuse to a co-worker that she can't be good at her job because she has all of her home and family responsibilities to tend to as well. The co-worker responded by saying that her attitude was all wrong, and she should feel empowered because she has all these responsibilities.

I was thinking about this a few weeks ago on a Saturday when I woke up early to go to the library to work on my thesis. As I was eating breakfast, I noticed that the kitchen really needed cleaned. I thought, "I can't clean the kitchen, I have to work on my thesis." But then I thought, "you know what, I can do both things."

This made me develop a new mantra for life: everything would be more manageable if we replaced the phrase "I have to" with "I'm going to." So instead of saying...

"I have to get up early; I have to clean the kitchen; I have to go to the library; I have to finish my thesis; I have to write my talk for Sacrament meeting; and then I have to go home and make dinner. It's going to be awful!"

You'd end up with something more like,

"I'm going to get up early; I'm going to clean the kitchen; I'm going to go to the library; I'm going to finish my thesis; and then I'm going to write this talk and go home and make dinner, and it's going to be awesome!"

All of a sudden, just by replacing a simple phase, you're getting a pep-talk instead of a punishment; instead of feeling like you're drowning, you feel like a superhero. Not a bad way to look at it. Not at all.