Introspection.

What does it mean to be a good person?

I used to think I was a good person because I spent a great deal of time in study. I read and pondered the holy scriptures for at least an hour a day, sometimes more, usually late into the night after all my family or roommates had gone to bed. It was easy for me, then, to navigate through any passage of scripture and leap through dozens of references from memory. I felt secure in my knowledge and I didn't doubt that I was a good person.

But now, being married, going to school, and working all at once have put serious restrictions on my time. It is no longer realistic, or even possible, for me to study as often as I used to. I can only snatch a few minutes in the scriptures every day. That is really the best that I can do in my current situation and I'm certain that time constraints will only increase in the future.

And so I have been riddled with guilt since I married, wondering constantly if I am actually a good person. I wonder this as I struggle to do things married women are supposed to do. I'm not good at keeping a house or cooking. I don't have very much time to myself, and I prefer to spend my personal time reading or talking with a friend rather than scrubbling the counters and sweeping the floor. My husband naturally tires of my incompetencies and sometimes criticizes me. I feel like a bad person.

So I have had cause to stop and question what it really means to be a good person. Am I no longer a good person because I can't keep up my study regimen? Or did that not make me a good person in the first place?

I'm just wondering.