just me wrote:Runtu, that gets me thinking.
We aren't really taught to live an authentic life, let alone how to do it. That makes it even harder. We have been taught all our lives to follow a prescribed path that is supposed to work for everyone.
To expand on this.
I was given a path to follow. I was taught to follow the prophet. I was taught to automatically go with whatever came from the pulpit. Don't date until 16, don't have sexual experiences until marriage, don't drink coffee, don't break the WoW, don't wear a bikini, don't make the boys think about sex, don't get a tattoo, don't get a second piercing, go to church, attend meetings, don't cuss, don't watch R movies, pay tithing, go to seminary, etc, etc.
Beyond that I was taught to make the temple my main goal in life. I was taught that the steps in my life should go like this: graduate high school, look for a worthy ph holder to take me to the temple while going to college, get married quickly to avoid sin, put my husbands schooling and career before mine, don't wait to have children, be a stay-at-home mom, be a good wife/mother/homemaker, serve in the church, endure to the end. (that is a very simplified version of what the teachings/culture impressed upon me)
So that is what I did. I have been unhappy my entire adult life because of it. Always trying to be perfect and measure up to an ideal that simply was not authentic for me. I didn't even know it. I thought if I just could get more perfect I would become happy. I was taught that if I wasn't happy it was pretty much my own damn fault for not following the path the right way. I was very good at following the Mormon path, actually. But, in the Mormon world there is
always room for improvement. You are never good enough.
For *ME* it is not authentic to continue down the prescribed Mormon path. That doesn't mean that being authentic is doing everything
opposite.
Probably the biggest change for me has been to disconinue wearing the garment of the holy priesthood. It was no longer congruent with my beliefs. Despite what some members might think, wearing normal underwear is not evil or wrong.
For me, it would be more authentic to go dance at a drum circle in the sun on a Sunday morning than sit in 3 hours of Mormon meetings.
My ass is still tat free. My body will remain so, I hate needles. I probably won't be getting a second ear pierce, either. However, there is nothing WRONG or evil about getting a tattoo or piercing.
I won't ever, probably, drink coffee. I hate the smell and I don't handle caffeine well. There is nothing wrong or evil with drinking it, though.
I might drink green tea once a month or so. Who cares? My TBM parents drink green tea sometimes (blended with white!)
I have never been drunk and don't plan to ever become so. Who cares? Joseph Smith drank alcohol and so did Jesus.
I have never had sex outside my marriage and won't start doing that now. However, if single people wanna have sex with eachother, who cares? That doesn't make them bad or evil. Heck, most of my TBM friends and family had sex outside of marriage.
In the end, I think it is sad that what believers worry about most is *not* that the unbeliever will start to steal or kill or commit suicide. What they worry about most is that they will get an ass tattoo.
Just wow.