Not A Memoir - Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

If the only way to survive Mormonism and eventually earn the grace-given gifts you were promised is to hustle, there’s no need to worry. Mormonism practically invented hustle culture.

If you’re looking for a religion that will do its best to take over every spare minute of your life — and then some — Mormonism might be for you. And it’s not just for adults. They’ll put your teens to work, too.

When I turned twelve, like all the Mormon twelve-year-olds who came before me, I was moved from the children's program to the youth program. And of course, Mormonism, being the most organized of organized religions, made sure the youth program was very structured.

Obviously, they split the boys and girls — because even though we’re expected and encouraged to get married basically as soon as we turn eighteen, we shouldn’t even look at the opposite sex before then. (Don’t worry, more on Mormon dating rules later.)

So on the girls' side, you have:

• Beehives (12–14 years old)

  
  

• Miamaids (14–16 years old)

  
  

• Laurels (16–18 years old)

  
  

And on the boys' side:

• Deacons (12–14 years old)

  
  

• Teachers (14–16 years old)

  
  

• Priests (16–18 years old)

  
  

I know. The names are confusing, especially when you’re talking to people from other religions .

“So our congregation’s Priests volunteered at the Food Bank last week.”

“Don’t you have to lift a lot of boxes? Wasn’t that hard on their backs?”

“What? No, they’re like seventeen.”

“... Your priests are seventeen years old?”

“Yeah, how old are yours?”

“Like... 45 and up.”

And the organization doesn’t stop at funky names for different age groups. Each class runs like a mini-Mormon-congregation, with a President, two counselors, and a secretary.

Of course, this is just practice for when they grow up, right? So they’ll pass the roles around to give everyone a chance.

WRONG.

No job in the Church (all unpaid, unless you're a General Authority) is handed out arbitrarily. At least, not officially. No, every job in the LDS Church — including leadership roles for literal teenagers — is supposedly given by inspiration from God.

Here’s how it works:

The Bishop (the man in charge of your congregation) and his counselors (the Bishopric) realize someone with a calling needs to be replaced — because in Mormonism, all callings are temporary and rotating.

So they get together, pray about it, and without any biases, agendas, or prior ideas whatsoever, God reveals the next person to them.

Then they approach that person and tell them that God has called them to serve — and ask them, right then and there, whether they’ll accept.

Usually, they do. Then the previous person is officially "released," the new person is "called," and they receive a blessing called a "setting apart," where God supposedly grants them all the powers and abilities they'll need to fulfill their new role.

Totally flawless system.

A few weeks after I turned twelve, I guess God decided the Beehive leadership needed a shake-up. The Young Women leaders went to the Bishopric with my name, and a few weeks later, I was called as the Second Counselor in the Beehive Class Presidency.

I know. Very prestigious.

I went to meetings after our three-hour-long church services, planned activities for our age group, bought supplies, and made plans to visit less active girls. It was more work, sure, but I was homeschooled that year and didn’t have much else going on—besides, you know, twelve hours a week of Russian ballet. Totally manageable.

Then a few months later, I was promoted to President of the Beehives.

Cool!

Unfortunately, that new role came with even more meetings, more adults to coordinate with, and more responsibilities.

And I stayed President for the next. Two. Years.

During that time, I went back to public school and increased my ballet hours, so my schedule was getting pretty full. But still, I did it:

• I planned and attended all our Wednesday night activities.

• I stayed late for meetings on Sundays (which especially sucked on Fast Sundays—the first Sunday of every month—when you’re supposed to fast from food and drink all day, and people will absolutely judge you if they catch you drinking water).

By the end of my time as a Beehive, I was so ready to move up to Miamaids and finally be released. I was starting high school, doing the advanced track, and determined to be the highest high-achiever my high school had ever seen. I had already quit ballet because I was too overwhelmed with everything else. Endless church obligations didn’t exactly fit into that plan.

Oh, and I can’t forget to mention what else starts with high school: early morning seminary.

Yes, from the first day of freshman year to the last day of senior year, I woke up at 5 a.m., drove to the church building, attended an entire scripture study class that I was expected to be awake and functional for—and then went to school.

All without coffee.

So yeah, I was thrilled to finally be a regular Joe again.

Except... God had other plans.

Apparently, God thought I’d done such a good job as Beehive President that he wanted me to do it all over again.

And who am I to say no to God?

And so the cycle continued. There were fifteen to twenty girls in my age group, all of them just as capable of doing this job. Maybe they wouldn’t have been as organized or as obsessive about getting everything right—but we’ll never really know, because they were never given a chance.

Apparently it was me, or no one.

By the time I was seventeen—junior year, the most important year for grades, extracurriculars, honor societies, SAT scores, and college admissions—I was burned out.

Not just burned out. I was anxious. Depressed. Suicidal. Dreading life.

But I still had to do my stupid church job, now featuring managing incompetent adults. God had apparently decided to put the worst possible woman in charge of the Young Women’s program, and as Laurel Class President, it was my job to fix her messes.

I confronted the Bishopric about it, but of course it didn’t do any good. They just hit me with the familiar line:

"God doesn’t call the perfect; he perfects the called."

Sure. Maybe God should've started perfecting her a little sooner.

At the same time, I was starting to have real doubts about the Church—and about the path they expected me to walk. Especially the part where I was supposed to find a Mormon man to marry and submit to.

I’d seen a lot of Mormon men. I'd seen them expect their wives to be housekeepers and emotional punching bags. I'd seen the Man of the House wake up his sick wife to get him cold medicine because he couldn't be bothered to walk to the bathroom himself.

And I imagined myself stuck with one of them, and I wanted to throw up.

I actually approached my Bishop to talk about it. We were always encouraged to “talk to your Bishop if you ever have questions!”

So there I was: crying in this man’s office. A man I’d known for years. A man who was the father of one of my friends.

And what I got?

A "not all men" speech.

I walked out of that meeting feeling even worse about the future. But I didn’t have time to dwell on it, because I still had my church job to do.

That’s the thing about Mormon callings. Yes, they’re unpaid labor disguised as divine assignments. But they’re also thought-stopping tactics. They keep you so busy, so responsible for everyone else’s problems, so enmeshed in the culture and activity, that you don’t have time to dwell on the inconsistencies, the contradictions, the gnawing questions piling up on your mental Shelf.

You don’t have time to wonder why your supposed spiritual leaders can’t tell when you're falling apart.

You don’t have time to realize that the system that promised you joy only delivers exhaustion.

You don't even have time to realize you're drowning—because you're too busy planning the next weeknight activity, or baking cookies for a girl you barely know, hoping maybe this act of service will finally make you feel the Spirit the way you’re supposed to.

The system doesn’t ask you to reflect. It asks you to perform.

And if you can’t keep up?

That’s not a sign the system is broken. That’s a sign you’re broken.

At least, that’s the story they tell you.

And the worst part?

You believe it.

That’s the hustle culture. And being immersed in it for six straight years, without a break, broke me.

I was finally released from being Laurel President, and I was so relieved. Finally, I could focus on finishing high school, choosing a college, and maybe—maybe—not wanting to kill myself.

Except a month later, they came knocking again.

Would I be a Counselor?

Seriously?

I did something I had never even considered doing before:

I said no.

Of course, he asked me to take a few hours, think about it, and he’d swing by my house later to talk again. Because no doesn’t mean no.

I went home. I talked to my parents. I prayed about it.

And I still didn’t want to do it.

Hadn’t I done enough? Did God really need me to step up, again? Or maybe—just maybe—was it that I was really good at this, and everyone knew it, and they didn’t want to let me go?

I didn’t know then. I only knew I couldn’t do it anymore.

When the bishopric member came by again, I held firm.

And for the first time in years, I chose myself. And I wondered if maybe God would still love me anyway.

I spent the rest of my senior year—if not exactly in peace, then at least with a few blessed hours back in my control.

Truthfully?

I haven’t recovered from that time.

I’m still burned out.

In college, I avoided leadership roles like the plague—even when professors recommended me for them.

And when I graduated and started working, I swore I'd just be a regular Joe.

That didn’t last long.

Apparently, I’m decent at my job. The awards and bonuses started rolling in. Great things, objectively. Except … part of me doesn’t know how to stop hustling.

Part of me still believes—deep in the oldest wiring of my brain—that if I slow down, if I stop earning my keep, if I stop being exceptional, everything will fall apart.

I am still trying to unlearn the idea that my value lies in how much I can produce. How much I can carry. How much I can give.

That’s what Mormonism taught me:

If you're tired, you aren't working hard enough.

If you're drowning, swim faster.

If you say no, you're letting God down.

If you burn out, you have no one to blame but yourself.

And that kind of lesson—no matter how many years pass, no matter how many times you tell yourself it’s over—doesn’t just fade quietly into the background.

It brands you.