Despite the Storm

It's raining pretty hard in my corner of the world. Some people have lost power. It's pretty rough out there. Fortunately for me and my family, we have adequate shelter. We're safe, and even mostly comfortable, despite the storm outside.

Similarly, we can, if prepared, enjoy relative comfort and safety, despite the more figurative storms of life. There are many external challenges that can shake us and disturb our peace, but we don't have to let them. With sufficient resilience, we can stay strong and calm, despite the storms of life.

Naturally, this is easier said than done, and I need to work on this as much as anybody and more than most. Yet, I know that it's possible to have calm and peace, despite the storms of life, and not only when they pass.

I'm grateful that I had good shelter from tonight's storm, and I hope that I can develop the resilience I need to withstand life's figurative storms as well.

I Am Not A Stoic

I have a passing interest in stoic philosophy and some desire to adopt it, but an experience this afternoon and evening has shown me that I still have a lot to learn. The stoics believe (among other things) in focusing on that which is within our control and not worrying about that which is not. This afternoon, I failed to do the latter. I worried. There was a perceived problem that I could do nothing about, at least not at the moment, but I still worried about it.

And, as it turned out, I needn't've worried. The perceived problem resolved itself, and I learned that I had worried for nothing. Yet, even if action was required on my part, and I needed to do something to solve to problem, worrying about it still wouldn't've helped. Sure, I'd've needed to act, and I'd've needed to have had sufficient motivation to act, but any amount of worry beyond that would have been a waste of emotional energy.

This afternoon and evening, I worried about a problem more than I needed to, and my day was worse off for it. I should instead have been more pragmatic, explored what options I had for what I could and/or needed to do, and made a plan from there. I should have focused on that which I could control, rather than worrying about that which I couldn't.

While I remain a student of philosophy, including stoic philosophy, my poor emotional control continues to prove that I am not a stoic, at least not yet. But I'm not going to worry about that. Instead, I'm going to work on it, to try to retain the wisdom I gained this evening, and to try to control my emotions the next time I'm tempted to worry.

Christian Values

As part of our Family Scripture study this evening, my family and I read Galatians 5:22, in which Paul (I think) lists some of the fruits of the spirit: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, [and] faith." As I read this list, I thought of how it's a list, not only of desirable blessings worth seeking, but of values and virtues worth practicing. We should express love for each other and for all mankind. We should express and share joy. We should make peace and practice patience. We should be gentle and try to be good. These are among the core tenets of our faith. These are the Christian values we should strive to embody and promote.

Some people try to use the idea of Christian values in order to try to enforce or forbid certain behaviors or lifestyles, but controlling others isn't what Christianity is about. We Christians should seek to cleanse the inward vessel and lead by example. We should practice the virtues we wish others would also practice. If we want others to live up to certain standards or uphold certain values, we should uphold those standards and values as well. Then others, seeing our example, may, even without prodding, decide to reflect our behavior.

These are good, Christian values. I would like to see them practiced more in the world. But first, in order to help them spread throughout the world, we should practice them in our homes and in our hearts.

Out of the Sower's Hands

For family scripture study tonight, my family and I reviewed The Parable of the Sower. In this parable, the sower casts seeds, which fall on various kinds of ground. The seeds that fall on good soil grow, but the seeds that fall on lesser soil don't. One thing that struck me about this parable is that, unlike in The Parable of the Vineyard, there's nothing more the sower can do than simply cast the seeds. Once the sower has done their work, the rest of the process isn't up to them. It's literally out of their hands.

So it often is for us. We can share the message of the Gospel, but it's up to the hearers to receive it. If they choose not to listen, there's not much more we can do. People have agency, and that includes the ability to choose what they want to believe. Granted, we're not completely powerless in this. We can try to share our message as clearly and convincingly as possible, which includes speaking to the needs of those with whom we share it, and we can try to find and teach those who would be particularly receptive. But once we've said our peace and those we've spoken to have heard it, we'll have done about all we can do.

So, if you share a message, and the ones you share it with don't accept it, don't despair. It was necessarily any failing on your part. People can choose for themselves whether they'll accept the message or not. All we have to do is share it. Once the message has left our lips, it's not up to us anymore. Then it's up to God, the Spirit, and the soil on which the seeds were sown.

Finding Joy

Every so often, I like to look for joy in the little things, like the shininess of a wet, smooth rock, the satisfaction of getting something clean, or the pleasant sound small stones make when they clink together. Such little joys would have been easy to overlook or to write off as just a small pile of rocks, but my evening would have been worse for doing so. Noticing and appreciating such little things takes deliberate, conscious thought, but it's well worth the effort of putting in the practice. Heck, the sound of my keyboard is somewhat pleasant, now that I think about it, and there's something satisfying about seeing words slowly filling up a page. The website I'm using has a functional, but charming minimalist design, with a few bright accents. And the room I'm sitting in has its charms as well. There's beauty in so many things, if we have a mind to look for them.

Many people think that joy is something we can earn. Joy is supposed to be the reward for achieving something we've striven for. Yet, we can find joy simply in appreciating things, like a gentle hum or a warm glow. There's probably something beautiful or charming near you right now. You just need to notice it. And if you can find it, and find joy in it, your life will have more joy in it than it did a moment ago, and we'll both be all the happier for it.

God's Time

Story time is weird. I sometimes write in an ongoing story I'm writing for myself, and the passage of time happens so strangely in this story. Today, I wrote a good deal, and the characters in the story went through weeks of experiences in what was only a few hours for me. At other times, I'm busy with other things, so the characters in the story can be stuck in a moment in time for days in real time, only for me to get a few minutes, advance their story by a few seconds, and make them wait another few days to see what happens next. I control the flow of time in their world. I can fast forward or skip through scenes if I find them uninteresting. I can backtrack to redo something I changed my mind about. I can write what's going to happen in their future and then build up a path that'll lead to that. I am their world's god of fate and time.

This makes me wonder how God sees fate and time in our world. Being omniscient, He can probably see every moment at once, past and future. Yet, He can also have an influence in real time. For example, when He cleared my esophagus immediately after I received a Priesthood Blessing last night, He knew exactly when to give me that blessing for maximum effect. Now, He might have set that up in advance, or He might have gone back from some point in the future and tweaked the result with the benefit of hindsight.

I have no idea how the flow of time works for God. Maybe we aren't supposed to have any idea how it works. Maybe it's supposed to be a mystery, or maybe the truth is so complex, our mortal minds can't wrap our heads around it. However it works, I'm just glad that it works and that God's timing, however He manages it, is almost always impeccable. I use the magics of authorship and editing to alter the flow of time in my world. I wonder how and how much God alters the flow of time in ours.

A Christmas Miracle

I can blog tonight. That's notable, both in contrast to last night and because, for a few hours there, it looked like I might not be able to blog, as I would have been in the hospital.

It had nothing to do with last night. After I threw up, blogged, and got some sleep, I actually felt fine this morning. The trouble came this evening, when a piece of meat from dinner got stuck in my esophagus and prevented me from completing my meal. This has happened before; usually the piece of food manages to go down (or come back up) after a short while, usually with some effort to drink water (or to undrink it, so to speak).

But this piece was tenacious. It remained stuck for hours, to the point where I was strongly considering going to the hospital to get their help in clearing my esophagus, by any means necessary. Yet, before we went, my sister thought it would be prudent to ask my brother to give me a blessing, and my brother and I agreed. Before the blessing, I tried to clear my tubes myself, to no avail. But after the blessing, as one last attempt before going to the hospital, I tried to clear my tubes, and this time, it actually worked.The blessing worked. My mom remarked that blessings don't normally work that quickly. She was our spokesperson in a prayer of thanks.

It seems somewhat small for a Christmas Miracle, but it may be a bigger miracle than it seems. We don't know how arduous a fate we were spared from. We also don't know what all effects this miracle will have. For now, I'm grateful that it happened and that I was blessed not to have to go to the hospital on Christmas. I know that others weren't so lucky. Being able to swallow again may seem like a small miracle, but I'm glad to have had it.

Can't Blog Tonight

I can't blog tonight. I'm very tired, I have a headache, I'm so nauseous that I just threw up, and I need to be awake and church-ready fairly early for choir practice, assuming that I'm well enough by then to even go. I need to get some sleep. I just hope it'll help.

Vicarious Happiness

Today, I attended a gift exchange, but I wasn't part of the exchange. I didn't unwrap any gifts, and I didn't give anyone any gifts to unwrap. Yet, I still had a lovely time. I enjoyed seeing others give and receive gifts, and I think I felt some of their joy vicariously. Seeing their happiness made me happy.

This is, perhaps, one reason to want to make others happy. Emotions tend to spread. Misery begets misery, resulting in the adage that "misery loves company," and joy begets joy. Making one person happy can also make other people happy, including oneself.

Today, I experienced happiness just by being in the same room as people giving each other happiness. In the future, I will give other people happiness, and that happiness is going to spread.

On Insults

I just heard someone describe terrorists as "cowardly," and it struck me that, whether the assessment was accurate or not, it certainly wasn't kind. I think I might have used the word "misguided," unless I was trying to argue or offend. Granted, terrorists tend to be our mortal enemies, not necessarily deserving of kindness, but in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that we should "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). This tells me that it is more Christlike to speak kindly of your enemies than it is to insult them.

Yet, Jesus Himself insulted people. In Matthew 23, for example, He called the scribes and Pharisees "hypocrites," "blind guides," "serpents," and "fools," and judging by the exclamation points, I doubt He was merely stating it as a matter of fact or as necessary and gentle correction. He was insulting them, even using a word that He specifically warned us against using. During the Sermon on the Mount, He said "but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire" (Matthew 5:22). So, I'm a little confused. Jesus' teachings suggest that it's wrong to insult people, yet His actions suggest that there are times when using insults is acceptable. I'm almost tempted to call Jesus a hypocrite, directly acting against one of His own teachings.

I'm not sure how to reconcile this. I'm convinced that it's wrong to insult people, but I'm not sure why it was justifiable for Jesus to do so. We know that Jesus never sinned, so whatever He did, it couldn't be sinful. So, is it not a sin to insult people? Is insulting others a sin with exceptions, like how "Thou shalt not kill" was given multiple exceptions throughout scripture?

Personally, I'm going to continue to try to refrain from insulting people, despite Jesus' example indicating that it may occasionally be justified. It seems like a bad habit, and I'd rather not take the risk. Besides, it isn't kind, and I think this world could use more kindness. I still consider it morally wrong to insult people, and I had thought that Jesus did, too.

The Perennial Predicament

Every year, during the holiday season, many people have to juggle two or more sets of family and other obligations. They have to choose with whom they have Thanksgiving dinner, which Christmastime events they attend, and where they are when they ring in the New Year. Many people have multiple places they'd like to be and multiple groups of people they'd like to be with, but no one can be in two places at once. Every year, people have to make hard decisions, and no matter what they choose, someone's going to feel hurt. All we can do is try to minimize that hurt.

Over the next few days, I'm going to spend as much time as I can with as much of my family as I can, and hopefully a friend, too. But I won't be able to make it to everything. I just hope that those whom I'll have to miss will be able to understand.

On Not Needing Guidance

For Family Scripture Study (and, for the record, the words of the prophets and apostles can count as "living scripture"), my family listened to a talk by Elder Bednar in which he said, among other things, that we shouldn't worry so much about whether or not we're receiving spiritual promptings. If we are trying to do good, either the Holy Ghost will guide us, or He won't need to. If we consistently follow the path to the right, we won't need a guide to point, nudge, or shove us to the right, since we're already going there anyway. It is those who are going to the left who need guidance, direction, and maybe a nudge or shove.

So, if we don't feel like the Spirit is speaking to us, that's good. It means He doesn't feel the need to, because we're already going the way that He would have told us to go.

More Ethical Than Society

I just read a Facebook post that said, "You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in," and I immediately knew I had to blog about it. At first, this seemed odd to me. If the society you grew up in is already ethical (as most societies believe themselves to be), then trying to be more ethical than that might result in "looking beyond the mark," (Jacob 4:14). Many people in the United States today are trying to be "more ethical" than the rest of society, and there is some disagreement about whether they're succeeding or not.

Yet, it's certainly true that no earthly society is perfect. Any society could be more ethical, and many could be much more ethical. As long as there is any room for improvement, we owe it to ourselves to try to improve. That is, I suppose, how societies can become more ethical, through individual members of society trying to improve. Naturally, it's more complicated than that, and certain social systems may reward or punish ethical or unethical behavior, but so long as a society is composed of individuals, the society is only as ethical as its individual members are. We owe it to ourselves and our societies to make ourselves and them and ethical as we and they can be. And if that means being more ethical than they are now, then yes, we should try to be more ethical than the societies we grew up in.

I try to be an ethical person. I try (and often fail) to become more ethical than I had been. I'm not sure if I'm becoming more ethical than the society I grew up in, but I'm trying to become as ethical as I can be, and I hope that the rest of society will gradually become more ethical as well.

The Other F Word

I'm sure we all know what "the F word" is. However, I've discovered a word we can put in its place and result in a much better message: Forgive. For example, "F*** that guy." becomes "Forgive that guy."

And really, you should. No matter what "that guy" did to invoke your ire, forgiving them is much better than the alternative. Forgiving them is a spiritually enriching act. Through forgiveness, we can let go of the pain and the hurt that others caused us. Don't seek revenge or anger. Seek healing and peace.

This substitution also helps when others tell us to "go f*** yourself," because we should forgive ourselves as well. We're all learning and growing. We all need patience and grace. We all need to be forgiven, and we all need to forgive.

So, I'm going to try to be as forgiving as I can manage to be, with myself and others, including in cases where a certain other "f word" may be involved.

I Need to Let This Go

You know what? I really need to let this go. There's something that happened months ago, and it's been bothering me for the last few weeks, and it's gotten to the point where I either need to have an open, honest, private, preferably calm and quiet conversation about it, or I need to just let it go. The negative emotions I feel about what happened aren't doing me any good, and I'm too pessimistic to believe that a conversation would do any good, either, so I need to just let it go. I need to forget about what happened, or at least get over my negative feelings about it. Granted, this will be easier said than done, but for the sake of my own emotional well-being, I need to stop caring so much about what happened. I need to be more stoic about it. The past and other people are outside of my control; I shouldn't let them bother me. Instead, I should control myself and my emotions, even in difficult circumstances. Again, easier said than done, but it'll be worth it. My own inner peace will be worth the effort of purging the negative emotions that are disturbing it.

How to Become a Celestial Being

In a D&D-like game that I'm running for myself, the main character, a paladin named Eloise, has a goal of becoming a Celestial Being. Yet, she has some doubts about whether she can accomplish that feat. She sees herself as being too flawed, too human, to become Celestial. She shared these concerns with an NPC name Saint Halcion, who had been human and who had since become an angel, and he offered her these words of comfort and advice: 

One need not be perfect in order to be good, and one need not be perfect in order to rightly be called Celestial. Continue working on your flaws always, but you will become a Celestial Being long before you become perfect.

Granted, I was writing both of these characters, so this was really just me talking to myself, but even so, I think this advice is worth considering. We're not perfect, and we're not going to become perfect in this lifetime. We won't be perfect by the time of Final Judgement, but that's okay; we don't have to be. One does not need to be literally perfect to qualify for the Celestial Kingdom, and our Eternal Progression will continue long after we get there. Like Saint Halcion said, we will become Celestial Beings long before we become perfect. In fact, in terms of our behavior, we can become Celestial now. We can uphold Celestial standards, even in mortality, even as we continue to fall short of perfection.

None of us is perfect. None of us will become perfect in this lifetime. But we can be good, we can be Celestial, and we can gradually, eventually become perfect, especially if we work on overcoming our flaws and being good, rather than worrying that we might not be good enough.

Freedom to Act

One thing I love about D&D is the freedom it gives its players. Within the framework of various rules, the players can create any characters they want, and then the characters can do (or at least attempt to do) anything the players can think of. And the DM, specifically, has even more freedom, being able to alter and even ignore some rules while creating the characters that they control. D&D players are able to create unique worlds, adventures, characters, and stories and explore them all however they see fit. It's amazing, and I greatly enjoy the freedom D&D provides.

Naturally, the real world is a little different. We have fewer character customization options, and there's far less fantasy and magic to play with, but we still have a good deal of freedom to act as we choose. We can do, or at least attempt to do, almost anything we can think of. In fact, we have so much freedom, it can be hard to decide what to do next. Each day has only so many hours in it, and it's up to us to decide what we'll do with them.

I'm grateful for the freedom to act as I see fit. I don't always make the best decisions with the time I have, but I still try to use it fairly wisely, and I'm glad that I have the freedom to do, or at least to try to do, anything I can think of. Life is an open world. It's up to us to decide what we do here.

Appreciating the Group Effort

Tonight was probably the best session of D&D I've ever run, the end of a year-long adventure campaign, and many of the players gave me, the DM, most of the credit for the success of the session and the campaign as a whole. Some would argue that this is only fair; the DM does a lot of planning, improvising, and adjudication, all of which is set toward making the campaign as fun as possible for the other players, but I think that those other players deserve a good deal of the credit for the game as well. Without the players, there is no game, and it's the players' emotional investment on the game that gives the game its emotional weight. The players' plans and actions determine a lot of the plot of the game, and as the main characters, they provide most of the flavor as well. Perhaps it's most accurate to say that the players and the DM need each other, and neither of them could create a good game without the other.

It's nice to feel appreciated, and it's good to appreciate others as well. Everyone who participated in that year-long campaign deserves some of the credit for making that game as fun as it was, and I'm glad that we're all giving each other the credit we're due. This game was a group effort, and I'm glad that our group (and our game) was a good one.

Happy to Help

I was late coming home today. I was helping a student with a paper that's due tonight, and though we had to burn some midnight oil to do so, we managed to complete the draft before the deadline. I'm grateful that I was there to help her tonight and that my help made a difference. Though it meant an hour or so of unpaid overtime, I was happy to help.

I wonder what made tonight different than some other times have been. I wonder why I was happy to help tonight, while I other times, I feel overwhelmed. 

It might have been the time of day. Late afternoon/early evening is a more convenient time to help people than late at night is, and I'm generally less tired then. 

It might have been the novelty. Though I help people with papers every day, each paper is unique. Each one is a new puzzle, not a rote chore. 

Or it might have been that I was doing something that I was good at (or at which I am good, for any purists out there). I have nearly a decade of tutoring experience and more than a decade of getting straight As in every college English class I've ever taken. Writing papers and helping students with theirs aren't very challenging for me.

My willingness and happiness to help may have been for any or all of those reasons, or for a different reason entirely. But whatever the reason, I was happy to help that student tonight, and I'm glad that I was happy to help.

Deathbed Repentance

I'm not sure I believe in deathbed repentance. Repentance means change, and change takes time. Those who repent when they have no time left might not have enough time left to repent.

Yet, there is some evidence for the potential immediacy of repentance. Alma 34:31 says that repentance can happen immediately:

Yea, I would that ye would come forth and harden not your hearts any longer; for behold, now is the time and the day of your salvation; and therefore, if ye will repent and harden not your hearts, immediately shall the great plan of redemption be brought about unto you.

"Immediately" sounds pretty quick. And Elder Holland confirms it. In a speech given to BYU students, he said the following:

You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it.

So, I'm not sure. Generally, I would say that repentance needs to be backed up by at least some amount of time living a morally good life to be genuine, but according to some, it may be enough to take the first step down that path, even if you don't have enough time to complete it, at least not in this lifetime.

And as of right now, I think I understand why. When I started to write this blog post, it was still "today." The clock hadn't struck midnight yet. The blog post wasn't yet late. It certainly wasn't "too late" for me to start blogging. And even now that the blog post is officially late, I think the fact that I started when I still had time and genuinely tried to make it still counts for something. Perhaps the same applies to repentance.

Naturally, it's best to repent as soon as possible, if only to take advantages available in this life, but only to the righteous. But if, near the end of your life, you found that you haven't been as righteous as you think you ought to have been, know that it's never too late to repent.

Deathbed repentance may be possible for those who are sincerely repentant. It's certainly better than post-death repentance. The best time to repent is always "as soon as possible," no matter how early or late that is.

Here (But Too Tired) to Help

I sometimes say that I'm "Here to Help," and whether I say it or not, it's almost always true. Helping is something I do quite often. It's something between my most persistent habit and my life's purpose. Wherever I am, whatever's going on, I'm probably there to help. I help people for a living. As a writing tutor, I help people with their writing assignments. I help my family with chores, dishes, errands, and odd jobs like handyman type stuff. I help my friends by running D&D games for them every week. I help people consistently, and I'm generally happy to do it.

Yet, there are times when I feel tired and overwhelmed, and I don't feel like helping, and sometimes I help anyway, but at those times, I tend to be grumpy about it. Sometimes, I don't have enough energy to be helpful and polite at the same time. Sometimes, I don't have enough energy to be either. Sometimes, I just need to remove myself from the situation, take a few deep breaths, and rest.

I wonder what, if anything, this says about me, apart from the fact that I'm human. Can people become tired of practicing their habits? Can people get tired of fulfilling their life's purpose? It seems to me that practicing a habit or fulfilling one's life's purpose should be practically effortless, perhaps even invigorating, but it's not. Not always.

But I suppose that makes some sense. Let's say that someone habitually plays Baseball. They love the game, and they play it as much as they can. Yet, playing Baseball takes energy. One can burn calories by running bases and by throwing, hitting, and catching balls. If they haven't eaten or rested enough, it's possible for their body to simply run out of steam, no matter how much they love the game.

Maybe that's true of me, too. Maybe it's possible for me to simply not have the energy to help others from time to time, even if it is my life's purpose. A person may love playing Baseball or helping people but still face the fact that there's only so much of it they can take before they can't do it anymore, at least not until they've rested. Maybe I don't need to beat myself up for occasionally running out of steam.

It's good to help people, and I'm glad I help others more often than not, but it's also okay to get tired. It's okay to need rest. It's okay not to help everyone at all times. Even for me, a person who is almost always "here to help," it's okay if I occasionally can't. At least, I sure hope it is.

I am here, on Earth, to help, but I'm sorry that I am occasionally simply too tired to.

Even Better Miracles

Sometimes, we ask God for blessings. These can range from blessings as big as saving lives to as small as blessing a meal. But every time God acts in our lives, that's a miracle. We ask for miracles all the time. Sometimes, God grants us the miracles we ask for, but sometimes, He gives us even better ones instead.

God knows our lives and needs better than we do. He knows what's best for us. He knows what we really need and what we merely want. He knows that He sometimes needs to deny us the blessings and miracles that we ask for now in order to set us up to receive even better blessings and miracles later. 

This is part of the reason we need to be patient and we need to have faith. If God always gave us what we asked for, we'd be much worse off for it. We need to be willing to accept the answers God gives us, even when the answer is "no." Because often, when God chooses not to grant a particular blessing or miracle, He does so so He can give grant us even even better blessings and miracles later.

Cautiously Optimistic

I sometimes belittle the power of positive thinking. I'm cynical. I think that wishful thinking is childish. And yet, it's probably a happier way to live. Giving people the benefit of a doubt, expecting good things to happen, and interpreting life more charitably than it probably deserves, aren't always realistic or pragmatic, and they may not always be wise, but they are comforting and uplifting. From a purely Utilitarian perspective, such thinking is good, insofar that causes happiness and reduces suffering. Naturally, as with many things, it's possible to go too far. Thinking the best of people too much can set one up to get hurt by them. Yet, if one remains cautious and vigilant, there may not be much harm in also being optimistic. That's something I think I should strive for: being cautiously optimistic. Caution without optimism is miserable, and optimism without caution is reckless, but with both caution and optimism, I may be able to enjoy the benefits of positive and wishful thinking without falling into the same traps a more naive person might. I have an abundance of caution, and that's probably wise, but I could also use more optimism in my life, so perhaps I should try to be more optimistic.

Learn Better

In some stories, a villain may come to a sudden or gradual realization that their behavior has been villainous. Generally, people don't think of themselves as being bad, just human and probably misunderstood. Yet, none of us are as good as we could be. It shouldn't be surprising, then, that people occasionally realize that they had not been as good as they had thought they had been. We all occasionally realize that we had or have been making bad choices.

When this happens, we have several options, the best of which is almost certainly to repent and change our behavior, preferably without beating ourselves up for having been imperfect. As we learn and grow, we hopefully become better people, and part of that is learning about how we had been worse. Often, such a realization is painful, as is the challenge of breaking bad habits and forming better ones. Yet, the introspection and effort are necessary. If we want to become better, we need to be willing to find out where we have room to improve, and we need to be willing to put in the work of making those improvements.

It's a difficult process made all the more difficult by the knowledge that we must learn that we weren't as good as we thought we were. I've begun this process several times in my life, and I can attest to its difficulty. But facing the challenge is necessary if we want to improve.

We all make bad decisions. Our task is to learn what bad choices we're making and then to learn better.

Trying to Improve

The other day, I was thinking about the importance of trying to improve. I occasionally get compliments, and in response I tend to say "Thank you; I try," but that's not the kind of trying I'm talking about. It's not enough to try to be good; we should be continually trying to become better.

This is easier said than done. Trying to improve requires introspection, actively looking for areas in which we have room for improvement, and putting in the work of improving ourselves. This requires humility, honesty, and diligence. It requires us to accomplish the level of good that we typically do, and then to actively go above and beyond.

It's important and necessary to try to be good, but it isn't sufficient. It's not enough just to be good. We are trying to become better. And that requires us to look beyond the good that we normally do and to actively try to do even batter. Improvement takes time and effort, but it's good, necessary, and important for us to continue trying to improve.

Showing Love First

One thing that I need to stop being abysmal at is showing other people the kind of love I want them to show me. If I want people to be patient with me, I should also be patient with them. If I don't want people to judge me, I shouldn't judge them, either. If I want people to respect my beliefs, I should respect theirs, too. And so on.

It's tempting to withhold love until I have felt loved myself, but that's not really practical. If everyone withheld love until someone else loved them first, then the world would have much less love in it, and there would be desperately little love to go around. 

Instead, we should all try to love proactively. We should encourage those from whom we would seek encouragement. We should speak well of those whom we hope would speak well of us. We should show kindness to those of whom we would ask for kindness.

Granted, this won't always work the way we would like it to. It is possible that we'll show love to people who will then not show such love to us in return. At those times, we can hope that our expressions of love will still be rewarded by God, to whom we can also show the love we hope to receive.

Love always comes back to those who show it, so if you want people to show you love, it helps to show them love first.

A Stable Connection

In this age of technology, we can (usually) easily access nearly all knowledge on Earth. Yet, our connection to this data is not infallible. There are times when our wifi is spotty or our internet access goes down. At those times, we can sometimes get by using mobile data (as I am doing now), but this connection isn't infallible either.

At times like these, I'm grateful to have a much more robust line of communication to God. I know that, even when the wifi is down or the power is out, I can always pray to God, and He will always hear me. Prayer is a stable and stabilizing connection to a source of knowledge and guidance that far exceeds the internet in quality. I'm grateful that, even when I can't connect to the internet, I can always connect with God.

Trust in God's Plan

Today, in Sunday School, we discussed, among other things, the importance of having faith in God and His plans and timing. This can be tricky for us, because sometimes, God's plans take our lives in different directions that the ones we'd like of expect. In my case, it now seems apparent that God's plan for me involves me being in a place, spiritually, that I've been taught God doesn't want me to be in. I would have thought that, since God doesn't want people to be where I spiritually am, He would help me get out of it or would have steered me away from it in the first place. Yet, since God led me here, I can only assume that this is where God wants me to be, at least until He leads me out again.

I'm reminded of Nephi and Laban. God doesn't normally approve of murder, but in Nephi's case, God specifically commanded it. Nephi naturally balked at this command, but he ultimately trusted in God and did what he was commanded to do, even though it would otherwise have been sinful to do so. God knows His laws better than we do. He knows when they apply and when there are exceptions. Sure, we would love to know what all the rules are, rather than a handful of (usually) hard rules and a few dozen guiding principles, but if God were to explain all of the rules and exceptions thereto, I'm not sure it'd be practical to record and refer to them all. Rather, we are to trust God enough to keep His commandments and to trust Him enough to continue to follow Him, even if it seems to lead us off the path.

Nephi was disturbed by the seemingly sinful command he was given, but He trusted the Lord and followed His promptings, and because he did, everything worked out according to God's plan. I may be in a similar position. All my life, I've been trying to follow what I thought was God's plan for me, and I assumed I would have God's help in doing so, but the guidance God has given me has led me in some unexpected directions, and I'm just left to assume that God knows better than I do. God's plans don't always seem to make sense to us, but we have to trust that His plan is perfect and that everything will make sense in the end.

Too Tired; Need Rest

I'm tired. I've had a long day, and while I'm sure I could spend the next hour and a half trying to churn out another half-decent (if that) blog post, it would be far better for everyone if I spend that time resting instead. I have a bad habit of spending too much of my energy on too many people, and I tend to get burned out. I need to rest and recover my energy, and if that means spending less time and energy on my blog, that's a price that I'm will to pay. I'm sorry I'm not giving you a higher-quality blog post tonight, but right now, it's far more important for me to rest and recover instead.

Subtle Hints

I'm currently helping my brother play an action-adventure puzzle game called Tunic, but it's a little tricky. Because it's a puzzle game, and much of the fun and challenge of the game is solving its puzzles for oneself, I'm limited in the amount of help I can provide without ruining the experience. Mostly, I've only been giving him subtle hints, and usually only when he asks for a hint or accepts my offer of a hint.

I imagine it's much the same with God. God knows what we need to do, but He expects us to figure it out mostly on our own, with minimal guidance from Him. Any more guidance than that which He gives us would probably ruin the experience of us making our own decisions and learning for ourselves. If we always knew what God wanted us to do, the choice would be binary: Do we obey God or not? There wouldn't be much for us to figure out, so we would never learn how to figure out for ourselves what we should do. Too much guidance would ruin the experience of life.

We need to be willing to accept that God's hints are horribly subtle at times, and at those times, it's up to us to figure things out on our own. Sure, we may wander and stumble a bit, but that's part of life, and God already has a plan in place to make it right. Just as I need to withhold guidance and keep my hints subtle in order to let Joe properly experience Tunic, God also needs to withhold guidance and keep His hints subtle so we can properly experience life.

My Center

I recently watched a YouTube video in which a therapist and a filmmaker explored the psychology of a character named Jack Frost from a film titled Rise of the Guardians. In this YouTube video, the therapist and filmmaker spoke of a scene in which Santa Claus explains to Jack that everyone has a center, something that motivates them, something that makes them them. It's something like a purpose. In the film, Santa Claus says that his center is Wonder, seeing wonder in the world and helping others to see it, too. And later in the film, Jack discovers that his center is Fun, that what he enjoys most is having fun and helping others have fun, too. The therapist and filmmaker discussed their centers as well, considering ideas like Fun and Helping Others for the therapist and Creation and Storytelling for the filmmaker. Naturally, they asked their audience to consider their centers as well.

Much like Jack Frost at the beginning of the film, I don't know what my center is. I don't know what my purpose is, what brings me joy, what makes me me. Some years ago, I might have said Helping People, because I do genuinely enjoy that, when I don't feel like I'm being taken for granted or terribly burnt out. I like Making People Happy when I can. I also love Exploring Ideas and Solving Puzzles, but I'm not sure that either of those are my center, and I'm even less sure that I'd want them to be. Helping Others is noble, and I used to enjoy it a good deal, though perhaps I enjoyed it because it made others happy.

I'm not confident that I know what my center is. I'm not sure I'd recognize it if I saw it. I'm not sure what I'd want my center to be or whether a person can choose (rather than discover) what their center is. These are things that I'm hoping to discover about myself. If it's true that people have centers like that, I'd love to know what mine is.