Failure and Purpose

 I loved listening to “A Hero’s Journey” speech that Jeff Sandefer shared with BYU-Idaho students.  His words were really inspiring. My takeaway from his speech can be summed up in something he said at the beginning of his remarks, “So what does it mean to choose a hero’s journey? . . . It means to live as if you have an important mission, because you do. It means seeing struggles as adventures, and setbacks as lessons.”  Anything worth doing will require great sacrifice, but it will also require us to remember what the purpose of our life is in order for us to have the strength to make that sacrifice.  Just this week I received a less than expected grade on an assignment that I thought I had done well on.  I was very discouraged and wondering if I had what it took to be in school right now.  Moments like these make me pause and consider what my purpose is for pursuing my educational goals, especially when they coincide with other aspects of my life.  Over the last two weeks half my family has had COVID-19 and it’s been difficult to find time to care for my family and work on my assignments.  It’s requiring me to sacrifice time and sleep in order for me to accomplish everything that needs to be done.  I have to take a step back and think about what my purpose is.  My purpose is to learn and to get better.  If I did everything right the first time without much effort, would I really learn?  It’s worth it, even when things are crazy, to take the extra time on an assignment and give it my best.  When I mess up, it’s worth it for me to go back and do it again – not for credit, but for the purpose of learning and getting better at something that is hard.  It reminds me of a scripture that I read this week in D&C 117:13 that says, “. . . when he falls he shall rise again, for his sacrifice shall be more sacred unto me than his increase, saith the Lord.”  These experiences will rise with me to the next level of my learning – setbacks really are just a catalyst for deeper learning if I choose to “see struggles as adventures”.

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