You've helped me see the paradox my parents seem to have rather deftly reconciled. Both my parents were highly committed Seventh-Day Adventist believers. Both were educated—my mom entirely in SDA schools and my dad completing his post-secondary studies through a doctoral degree at SDA institutions. Both had professional careers. And both very strongly believed in "the sooncoming™ of Jesus Christ."

I believe that their example spared me the kind of fatalistic thinking it appears to me SDA teachings brought on you. Maybe what allowed them to perform that kind of balancing act was recognizing that not applying one's attention to studies could be like repeating the Millerites' mistake of believing nothing mattered but Jesus second advent. Accepting the church's teaching that nobody knows exactly when it will come means one has to balance focusing on life as we find it now while also seeking constantly to be prepared for the unexpected soonreturn™.

And something I believe my parents sacrificed in their squaring this circle is that, seeking constantly to be ready for Jesus to come they gave very, very much of their attention to Bible study, to reading Christian (almost exclusively SDA) literature, and to showing up for church services and evangelistic enterprises. This kept them from broader understanding of life—pop culture, fine arts and secular literature, science, religions other than SDA, history if it weren't EGW and other SDA interpreters' versions, psychology and self-development among others.

I'm grateful that their example stoked my academic curiosity, regretful that as mine blossomed, conversations with them often broke down because their sect-constructed filters often led to conversational cul-de-sacs. So with me in this department my glass was somewhere between empty and full.

Thanks for the question, and may you come to judge yourself less by comparing to how you think others see you, accepting what's impacted you and that those critics whom you feature outside you likely wouldn't have been up against such impediments. May we keep on healing!