Beauty Principle- Seeketh not her own

In accordance with Princess Academy, creator Donna Goff introduces beauty principles that go along with the books that the girls read as a part of their hope chest journey. I have been wanting to implement this for awhile, so I have decided to start blogging about different principles that I am learning about, sometimes with my girls, on my journey of discovering what beauty is all about.

Today while studying the word charity, I came across the phrase, "seeketh not her own" in Moroni 7:45. Moroni is a book in the Book of Mormon, which is a book similar to the Bible, but is written by prophets and others from the American Continent instead of the Jews. As I read these words, I asked myself the question, "What does it really mean to seek not your own?" Many thoughts came to my mind and I will share a few of them.

During the American revolution, and subsequent founding of the United States of America, many people who took part in this understood this principle. Every man who signed the Declaration of Independence was taking a huge chance on his life and the lives of his family, his property, and his personal comfort. Isn't it ironic that the very document they were signing contained these words, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the very things they were sacrificing personally to achieve the greater goal for mankind.

I strongly believe in personal mission, and sometimes my personal mission will require the sacrifice of my personal comforts and those of my family. The word service connotes sacrifice. Realizing that the benefits for the good of all, including myself and family in the word all, outweigh the sacrifice, is a part of the answer to my original question. It would have been easy for the founding fathers to ignore their mission. Many of these men were very wealthy. They could have easily just lived their lives comfortably and ignored the needs of society. These were regular citizens who saw a need and did whatever they could to fill that need.

What would happen today if our leaders did not seek their own, but sought the good of mankind? Do leaders like this even exist anymore? We must create these leaders in ourselves and our children. How do we do this? I believe the answer is education. Our public education system today focuses on job training, or in other words, my own comfort. What if our education focused instead on personal mission for the good of mankind? How can we fill needs if we don't have the education to understand what those needs are?

I feel the need to focus myself again. I want to fulfill my mission. For the last several years, I have been self-educating. I have learned a lot, but I have come to the point where I need a mentor. I need to go to school. I have struggled with guilt about this for some time thinking that I will be taking away from the needs of my family. The scripture I read this morning and writing this blog have helped me to realize that sometimes seeking not your own means you do something for yourself that at first seemed selfish. It's not really about ME though, it is about my mission and the good of mankind.

SO, my first resolution for 2010 is to get a job. The family finances do not allow for school tuition, so I am going to get a job as a small step towards getting me to school. I am excited! "By small and simple things are great things brought to pass."