Law of Conservation of Goodness

So here's a throwback to those high school physics days: remember the Law of Conservation? No? Well, I wouldn't either except that I needed to format my thoughts somehow, so I looked it up...

Here's a little reminder: basically, as applying to the amount of matter or energy, regardless of what's going on in the equation or the experiment, even if you see remarkable changes, when it comes down to it, nothing is created and nothing is destroyed. Everything stays at a constant amount.

Imagine a glass of milk and chocolate syrup. Mix those together: something has definitely changed, but the amount of total liquid is still the same as before. Drink the milk: the cup appears to be empty. However, the liquid still exists -- it didn't disappear into thin air, right?! It just changed places. Nothing was created, nothing was destroyed. Amount-wise, it all stayed the same regardless of the color change or place change.

Well, unfortunately, I tend to notice a Law of Conservation of Goodness in my life as a mother. I have several areas of my life in which I strive for improvement: getting the laundry done! being patient and calm with my children! exposing my children to good music! including the Lord in my day-to-day life! making nourishing meals! getting some girlfriend time! getting some one-on-one time with each of my kids! lovin' my husband! cleaning out the car! and the list goes on and on and on and on.

So I set goals. Sometimes. And I work towards improvement. But it seems like when I get good at one thing, I get worse at another thing. Dangit! That's what I mean about the Law of Conservation of Goodness -- that it appears I can neither create nor destroy the total amount of goodness in my life. It is at a constant and just changes form, changes color, changes places, changes which goal it applies to.

However, in all honesty, I've determined that this is a FALSE law. Oh, it might apply to physics and thermodynamics. But as I am getting old enough now to have a little hindsight, I know that in my attempts to get better, even though it looked like it meant getting worse in some neglected area, little by little, I am definitely better off than if I hadn't ever made the attempts.