Clear away the clutter

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Saturday Afternoon Session of the April 1992 Conference.

I have gotten a little bit tired of hearing about how much life slowed down for everyone during the pandemic—not because I don't relate, of course! Life obviously did slow down for us too, especially during those first few months, with lessons and sports and church activities canceled. But I guess I get a little envious when people talk about it, because there were so many ways that things didn't slow down for us, and it sounded so nice to be one of those people who suddenly found themselves with oodles more time to study the scriptures and contemplate what was really important in life. Ha! We always want what we don't have, I guess, and we families with lots of kids did not have weeks of stillness and contemplation!

However, the underlying idea—that the pandemic, by subtracting from our lives many things which we hadn't even considered as optional, gave us new perspective on what really mattered—is still relatable. And this talk by Elder William R. Bradford, though of course given decades before our current world events, goes right along with the lessons I think we were supposed to learn from them. It was interesting for me to think about my current intense desire for things to just return to normal, and to ask myself which things I might not want to pick back up again, given the chance.

Elder Bradford says:

A cluttered life is a life that you do not have control of. It is a life in which the things you have surrounded yourself with, and allow to use up your time, are controlling you and negatively influencing your happiness and eternal progress.…

Other things that clutter our lives and use up our time are not as obvious as the material. They are more subtle and just seem to evolve, taking control of us.

Whenever I think of something subtle—you know, kind of hidden, something we know is there if we stop to think about it but do not suspect it of cluttering up or negatively influencing our lives—whenever I think of something subtle like this, I know that Satan is busy at his work.

Nothing suits the devil better than to become a silent partner with us. He knows that we have agency and are at liberty to make choices for ourselves. He also knows that while in mortality we are subject to time. If by his subtle means he can become our silent partner, he can then influence us to make wrong choices that use up our time unwisely and prevent us from doing that which we should.

We give our lives to that which we give our time. As I have said, while here in mortality we are subject to time. We also have agency and may do what we will with our time. Let me repeat: We give our lives to that which we give our time.

Sometimes hearing that truth—that "we have agency and may do what we will with our time"—has irritated me. I think, "Not true! There are so many things I have to do; I don't have a choice at all! If I don't make meals for the kids, who will? I have to change diapers, don't I? I have to drive people places. I have to buy groceries!" But I know, really, that I DO have a choice in all of it. (And the pandemic did help show me that even in activities we've already "chosen" to do, to keep doing them is also a choice!) In addition, I have so many choices about which order to do things in, specific ways to do them, who to ask for help from, and so forth. And sometimes my choice is also in HOW I do these duties. Cheerfully? Willingly? Or grudgingly? I hate the idea of the devil being a "silent partner" to fool me into thinking I'm not in control of my own time!

Elder Bradford goes on to advise:

…We need to develop a list of basics, a list of those things that are indispensable to our mortal welfare and happiness and our eternal salvation. This list must follow the gospel pattern and contain the elements needed for our sanctification and perfection. It must be the product of inspiration and prayerful judgment between the things we really need and the things we just want. It should separate need from greed. It must be our best understanding of those things that are important as opposed to those things that are just interesting. It should have nothing to do with trying to stay in the fast lane.

We need to examine all the ways we use our time: our work, our ambitions, our affiliations, and the habits that drive our actions. As we make such a study, we will be able to better understand what we should really be spending our time doing.

When I read this, it made me think about how much of a blessing it is, really, to take responsibility for what is in my life. It's almost…cowardly to pretend "I have no choice" about this or that. I know from experience that I feel happier and more satisfied when I frame all the elements in my life as things I have chosen, rather than things that are just happening to me.

Then I loved this:

There are, then, some serious and soul-searching questions that we must ask ourselves. One of these questions would surely be, do I have time for prayer? I don’t mean just an occasional, quick, repetitious prayer that is like giving a wave of the hand to your Father in Heaven as you pass Him on your way to something important. I mean sincere, honest, “from the depths of a contrite spirit and a broken heart” prayer; kneeling in humility, demonstrating to the Holy Father that you really love him; private prayer which involves you in the process of repentance and pleading for forgiveness and allows time for pondering and waiting for the answers to come.

As you examine your list of basics, the next question would be, do I study the scriptures?… I solemnly testify that the holy scriptures are the word of God. Constant study of them is the act of holding to the iron rod. They will guide you to the tree of life. If you are one who has said, “I want my life back,” I exhort you to go to the tree of life, where you will find the pure love of God.

With an uncluttered life, you will not be so busy doing terrestrial things that you do not have time to do those things which are celestial. God’s plan is a plan of simplicity. It involves being obedient to simple laws, laws that have within them an automatic blessing and happiness for obedience and an automatic punishment and unhappiness for their disobedience.

And this:

I urge you to clear away the clutter. Take your life back. Use your willpower. Learn to say no to those things that will rob you of your precious time and infringe upon your agency to choose to live in exactness to God’s plan of happiness and exaltation.

Don’t let the subtle influences of Satan take away any part of your life. Keep it under your own control and operated by your own agency.

It's all such good counsel. You think I'd know all this by now; and I guess I'm learning it bit by bit. But this talk made me re-resolve to make sure I'm not letting things into my life, and our family's life, involuntarily, without considering them first. It made me want to recommit to use my agency, and consciously admit that I'm using my agency, to decide what I'm going to spend my time doing. And it made me feel anxious to be able to give a good accounting of how I spend my days. I don't want Heavenly Father to say to me someday, "But I gave you that gift of time during the pandemic to see what an uncluttered life looked like! And then you just let all the clutter back in!" I want to feel like I spent my life doing what He wanted me to do, and learning to love it, because I love Him.

Other posts in this series:

The Road to Heaven is Paved with Clutter—by G.