Ayn Rand on Rationalization

"Men do not accept a catch phrase by a process of thought, they seize upon a catch phrase—any catch phrase—because it fits their emotions. Such men do not judge the truth of a statement by its correspondence to reality—they judge reality by its correspondence to their feelings.

If, in the course of philosophical detection, you find yourself, at times, stopped by the indignantly bewildered question: “How could anyone arrive at such nonsense?”—you will begin to understand it when you discover that evil philosophies are systems of rationalization.

...When a theory achieves nothing but the opposite of its alleged goals, yet its advocates remain undeterred, you may be certain that it is not a conviction or an “ideal,” but a rationalization."

-Ayn Rand

Paycheck to Paycheck

According to CNBC, 70% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and 10% of people who make more than $100,000 yearly struggle to make ends meet

As a missionary, I witnessed many missionaries who I described as living "p-day to p-day" missionary work was drudgery unto them, and P-day was the only beacon of hope that kept them going. If missionary work would be particularly hard one week, they would burnout, and would crash, leading to petty-disobediences like sleeping in, dragging feet going out, hanging out at members, etc. These petty disobediences fail to adequately energize; a disobedience, to properly energize, must be deliberate (Rev 3:16). Say to your companion "I'm tired, lets take a break for one hour to just unwind at X member's house." This will give you very different spiritual results from saying "lets go to X members house for an active member lesson" when both of you know you will be there for hours and no lesson would be taught. 

The problem is that for many missionaries the day-to-day activities were more emotionally costly than they could afford. Its important to recognize when you are in a state of burn, and to switch gears to be able to make it over the hills. Switching gears doesn't have to mean disobedience; but one should work to save energy so that when horrible uphills hit, it doesn't zero you out. Here are principles to practice:

-Exercise to stay in shape, emotionally and physically and mentally. To continue the bike analogy, hills will always hit. Gears will help, but gears will help more if you're fit in the first place.

-Shift your stance to make your load more bearable. Lift with your back or with your legs. As a missionary: Lift with your sense of humor, lift with your charity. Whatever muscle is strong for you. Your inner self knows, you just need to let it drive. Some missionary's strongest muscle is their work-drive, but other missionaries are play focused and if they see work as drudgery they won't be able to keep up a high pace. They will need many breaks, losing efficiency. The best for such would be to see missionary work as play, so that they are lifting with their strongest muscle.

-Shift gears when hitting hills. Maybe the aforementioned missionary will hit an investigator who has no sense of play whatsoever. If the missionary expects play from them, they will be drained. The missionary must, in this instance, lift with a different muscle.

-Pace yourself. Relax. Don't make things more work than they are, especially in your mind. Dread increases weight and resistance.

-Save up. Carry a little bit of P-day with you, via memories, attitudes, learnings, etc.  I always was on the lookout for fun memories to write home about, and that helped it feel like I was having fun. 

-Learn to recognize burn. This single skill will allow you to address the situation in a mature way, rather than drift into the mire via petty thefts and disobediences.