ACCORDING TO ZAC

What is it about hearing a song or going somewhere from the past that activates this really distinct feeling I can barely explain? It's happy, but a little sad too. It's fun, but does have a sharp edge on it. “Sweet Disposition” by Temper Trap gets me feeling that way, and I'm right back in it after finding  this cover  of that song this week. That song takes me to really clear time of my life where I was really flying, right around my sophomore year of college. There were some growing pains then too, but by and large everything was really clicking; my ward was great, I was coming into my own spiritually, enjoying my major, and felt deep satisfaction in the relationships in my life. Back in 2020, as we were still in the early days of the pandemic and social distancing, I wrote about trying to reckon with the nostalgia of the past without overlooking the goodness of the present, which seems very akin to what I'm feeling now. I described it then as a combination of “long...

Lately I have been really worried about my life. Like, waaaaaay more than usual. And I've been having some really intense emotional whiplash getting really  caught up in these episodes in which I think about all the negative things that might happen and why does everyone else have something that I don't have but want and blah blah blah . And then God throws me a bone and says, "Hey. I love you. No, really, I do. And it's going to be just fine. Trust me." And then I cry. And then I start the process all over again. Well, in today's installment of "I love you and CALM THE HECK DOWN" from above, I was blessed with this little gem: "[God] made your spirit strong and capable of being resilient to the whirlwinds of life. The whirlwinds in your [life,] like the wind against a young tree, can increase your spiritual strength, preparing you for the years ahead." — Neil L. Andersen It made me think of all of the hardships in my...

The last month or two have been emotionally and spiritually turbulent, but for how challenging or upsetting a given situation might have been (mostly of my own doing, to be honest), in equal measure I have made great strides in faith, learning, and finding true joy. I can be sort of a doomsdayer, sometimes. I think, "Well I drove off the last woman I was interested in. I guess I'll just resign myself to being #foreveralone." Or, if after repeated goal setting and personal reflection I still don't feel like I'm making any progress on behaviors I'd like to change, I'll leap straight to "I'm not meant to shake these parts of who I am. I'll always be [enter personal deficiency or weakness here]." We all grow frustrated sometimes. It's the nature of most people, I think, that we get impatient when we aren't getting exactly what we want in the precise moment we've planned for it to arrive or occur. It can be the result of someon...