To be or not to be

Going into my project tomorrow I feel I have a confidently confused sense of direction. I've been thinking (while cleaning) today and I think I've found the reason for my enigma. 
I know the goals I've set for myself. I know I've made a lot of them with the intent to help my marriage be better. I'm confident that my marriage is the most important part of my life.. but when I start to picture myself completing these goals something doesn't click. I'm doing them with a good intent and I know what I want the outcome to look like, so what's the problem?
I can't actually see myself doing many of them! I picture a perfect Mormon housewife who wants kids yesterday and loves cooking and cleaning up after her wonderful husband who just got home from his fulfilling, lucrative job. 
YA RIGHT.
That is not my life. (Sorry if I offended any Mormon housewives who live that life. I didn't intend for it to have a negative connotation!) It's just simply.. not the life I live. I struggle through being married and I'd rather go to school than stay home and learn a new way to cook pork for my meat-loving husband. 
So in order to tackle this project I've got to learn to embrace who I am, while also fighting with who I am. 


The trick will be understanding when I need to be myself, and when I need to let go of myself. 


For example.. I used to love running in the rain. When it starts pouring rain and I'm in the middle of cooking dinner, do I go outside and run in the rain for a minute (even though it will risk the chicken on the stove)? OR do I fight that desire and stay inside to have food for my husband. Honestly, I don't know what the correct answer would be. I know that when this has happened, an opportunity that presents itself often in my windward Oahu home, I've stayed inside.. thinking that I'm being selfless and choosing to make his meal over my few minutes of joy. He's not even aware that I made the choice, but when the rain stops I always end up with a little bit of resentment towards him, as if he held me back from being myself. 
I should've gone out in the rain. 
Another example.. when we argue and he says something that makes no sense, my first instinct is to correct him or tell him that it made no sense. What does that solve though? He just gets mad and I get more frustrated. So the answer is obvious, try to understand what he's saying in a patient way. 


So moral of the story. I'll be using myself to bring happiness, and I'll be losing myself to bring happiness. Which means that each day will begin with a prayer to help me discern when the right time for each arrives. 


"Also, what is happiness good for if we can't help others be happy too?
Either we go through life pretending to be someone we're not, or we embrace who we are (the good and the bad) and we love others for doing the same." -April M.