2016's Focus Word Is...

According to Facebook it should be

Happiness

But I am choosing

Generous

I chose generous as a way to hold myself accountable to a commitment I made to  myself as we were working to pay off the house. That commitment was to give more, be more generous, once our house was paid off. Well, we sent in the final mortgage payment in September and now I really need to be intentional about giving more.

So that was the original reason I decided to have generous as my focus word, but as I started thinking/planning on how to implement generous behavior I realized that there were other ways besides monetary donations that I needed to be more generous.

I need to be more generous in my judgments of others. I'm doing better at this, but there is always room for improvement. I can still do better in giving the benefit of the doubt to others. I can be more generous in recognizing other's efforts in doing the best they can.

In line with being more generous in my judgments is being more generous with extending forgiveness. I think I'm pretty good at extending forgiveness, but that's only if the person apologizes. I know it is petty and unproductive to hold a grudge, but I do if I feel like I have been wronged and the offending party doesn't apologize. This next year I'm going to focus on being generous with forgiveness and moving past previous hurts, insults, and wrongs.

Generous in my judgments and generous in forgiveness...to do both I will need to be more generous in accessing the Atonement and applying it in my life. In a talk from Elder Klebingat, he states, "Because the Atonement of Jesus Christ is very practical, you should apply it generously 24/7, for it never runs out." As I reach for Christ and apply his Atonement, He will extend His grace to me. Grace is God's enabling power, a power that will help me overcome my weaknesses of harsh judgments and grudge-holding.

As I was studying about generosity, I stumbled across a devotional address given at BYU by an economist, Arthur Brooks. He was discussing the topic of giving and why it matters. I learned many things from reading this speech, but my take-away lesson was that being generous begets happiness.

So what do you know...

Facebook was right after all!

Looking forward to a generous, prosperous, HAPPY new year.