Don't Need No Credit Card

Blogging has been on my mind lately, because the other day I realized it's ten years ago this month that I started my first blog. (Yes, I think about things like this.) Also, I've been thinking about how I haven't been doing all that much blogging lately besides the occasional family photos and short updates and such, and I feel like I need to work on that right now.

Getting married in the spring is a big reason why I've been so busy. It's also a reason now why I feel like I need to be recording more of my thoughts and such, because marriage is still so new for us both, and I've learned a few things in this last little while; I hope they will be of some use to me and/or my family and friends at some point.

The best piece of advice, at least so far, that I've been given regarding marriage: Put your wife's needs and happiness above everything else. I've not been perfect at following that advice, certainly, but when I have followed that counsel, it has blessed us both immensely. And fortunately, I've been extremely blessed with a companion who tries to do the same thing herself.

It's not uncommon to run into both old and new friends lately and to hear the question, almost always in these exact words: "So, how's married life?"

The short answer is that it's wonderful. In fact, it's far better than I'd imagined it would be. I'd even go so far as to say that marriage is somewhat undersold and understated. As a single adult, and I was one for a long time, I didn't quite grasp this concept, but I get it now, and it's something for which it's worth sacrificing.

A couple of times, some of my single friends have asked what my "secret" was or how I got to where I did, and the answer to that is that I don't have any "secret," nor do I know anything they don't already know.

In the words of the great Huey Lewis:

"Don't need money,
Don't take fame
Don't need no credit card
To ride this train."

Oh yes, and one other thing: perseverance.

Yes, my discouraged single friends, those of you who may still lay awake at night wondering if it will ever happen for you: You must keep on trying. No matter how many times your heart has been broken, no matter how frustrating it's been, not matter how tired you are of the dating scene, you must keep trying.

If the horse has thrown you off, you must get back on the horse. You must be willing to risk, for without risk, there is no reward. You must put yourself out there and be vulnerable and allow someone else into your life with the possibility remaining that you will get hurt and/or burned yet again.

It's a long, tough journey, not unlike Frodo's journey with the One Ring, and it doesn't wrap up nicely in ten hours' time. It stinks. I know it does, because I've been there. But it is, nevertheless, the only way.

One day, you will meet someone who will take the pain away. It will fade into oblivion. It doesn't mean your life will be perfect, but you will have someone at your side to fight your battles with you, and you will know joy like you've never known before.

When I hear my friends in their 20s and 30s complain about it all, I chuckle in my head a little bit and say to myself, "Just wait until you get to be my age." No, that doesn't mean you necessarily have several more years of bad dating experiences ahead, but it might. I also recognize a number of other friends who are my age or older who are still dating, who keep trying and praying and wondering if it will ever happen for them, either. Still others have given up completely, and it saddens me to a great degree.

My advice, for whatever my advice is worth, is the same to you all, and I use the words of the great Winston Churchill: "Never, ever ever ever ever give up."

Or, may I paraphrase the scriptures:

"Cheerfully do all things that lie in (your) power; and then may (you) stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed" (D&C 123:17).