Leaving Paradise

This morning, I submitted my paper about leaving paradise. I wrote about how Adam and Eve had to leave the paradise of Eden in order to make progress toward the paradise that God has promised to all those who live faithfully. In our own way, we all have to do this. We all have to leave one paradise in order to progress toward another. We cannot make any progress if we comfortably remain where we are.

Granted, I'm not suggesting that we all currently live in paradises. Some people are between paradises right now. Some people are searching for any kind of paradise at all. Perhaps we can help them by leading them to any of the paradises we have found, by sharing with them any of the blessings we have found and teaching them how they can gain those blessings for themselves.

That said, some paradises are better than others, so while we try to lead people to better places than where they are now, we should also acknowledge that there are better places yet to find, and we often have to leave the comfort of where we are now in order to reach the potential of where we can be. The paradises we have already found are good, but we have to leave them behind us in order to find the paradises that are even better.

Progress is Important

This morning, I worked on a paper on a very blogworthy topic, but I don't want to blog about it too specifically until I submit the paper, out of a risk of an accusation of self-plagiarizing. For now, I'll simply say that it's important to keep making progress. No matter how good your current situation is (physically, spiritually, economically, or in any other way), it could always be better. Yet, your situation can't get better unless you're willing to put in the work to change it and move forward. Stagnation is damning, at least in the literal sense of the word. So, if we are to pursue eternal progress, we should develop in mortality the habit of continually striving to make progress. We should continue to try to become better in every important way. We should grow comfortable with the cycle of making an attempt, receiving feedback, gaining wisdom, and making another, better practiced, more wise attempt.

Progress is important. It's important to keep striving to make progress in important ways rather than letting ourselves stagnate.

Correcting a Dumb Mistake

Seven years and almost two months ago, I made a dumb mistake that I thought I had learned from, but about a week ago, I made a similar mistake, with a similar result. People learn slowly. Sometimes, people need to "learn" a lesson several times before it really sinks in. Still, I think I have learned something from that experience and in the intervening years. Whereas I had previously been somewhat content to accept the consequences of my dumb mistake, I now sought to correct the mistake almost immediately after repeating it. I did almost everything in my power to correct my mistake, including acquiring the necessary tools and seeking professional help when the tools proved insufficient. I now feel a lot better, and I also feel more confident in my willingness and ability to solve problems instead of simply living with them. I've become far more proactive than I was back then, and I'm glad it only took me two dumb mistakes and a week of clogged ears to learn that.

Defining and Achieving Success

Earlier today, I wrote a short essay about someone who achieved a good deal of success by staying true to their vision and by having their own idea of what success meant to them. See, we don't all have to have the same goals. Some people want to gain money or muscle mass, some people want to lose weight or bad habits, and some people want to gain friends or a set of collectible items. People have different goals. And when people accomplish any of their various goals, they can say that they were successful, at least at accomplishing that goal.

Now, there are multiple keys to accomplishing one's goals, but the one I want to focus on right now is the importance of maintaining focus. In order to reach a destination, you need to have a destination in mind and take steps that get you closer to it, but that's only possible so long as you remember where you're going. People get lost without landmarks to follow. Granted, one's habits can carry them for a while, but without a clear goal in mind, it's possible to run out of the motivation to maintain those habits. By keeping your focus on your goal, you can guide yourself and motivate yourself to take the steps that will get you closer to achieving your goal.

I'm glad I was able to learn and write about such an insightful person today. I'm grateful for the reminder of how we can define our own success and how we can achieve it. And I'm glad that I know what goals I'm striving for and that I'm motivated to take the steps to get there.

Letting it Go

They say that only takes offense when no offense was meant, and that those who take offense when offense is meant are even greater fools. I might expand this bit of wisdom to include other negative emotions, like anger and frustration. Often, those who frustrate us don't intend to, and thus should be forgiven, and those who do intend to anger or frustrate others don't deserve the satisfaction of succeeding. No matter what the sources of our hard feelings meant or didn't mean, we should try to let go of such negative feelings as quickly as possible. Either to forgive those who intended no wrong or to spite the trolls who attempt to provoke us, the best course of action is to let it go.

Do We Need Recreation?

Every day, we make decisions about how we spend our time. Of the infinite ways we can spend our time, I believe that most of those ways can be sorted into the three broad categories of Work, Rest, and Recreation.

Naturally, we have to spend some of our time doing the necessary work, and of course, our minds and bodies need adequate rest, but I wonder if the third category, recreation, is also important. I'd like to argue that it is, because I like recreation, but I'm really not sure.

One could argue that there are psychological benefits to recreation, perhaps even essential ones, but I don't know how essential those benefits are. It's possible that we need recreation as much as we need work and rest. Or maybe we don't actually need recreation at all.

Regardless, I think it's important that we spend at least some of our time with recreation, if only for our own enjoyment. Human happiness is important, and recreation makes people happy. I think that's enough reason to fit some recreation into our daily schedules, even if we don't technically need to do it.

Using Tools Poorly

The back of a box of Walgreens brand Double-Tip Cushioned Cotton Swabs (Q-Tips, basically) reads, in part, "CAUTION: DO NOT ENTER EAR CANAL. USE ONLY AS DIRECTED." This box of "Double-Tip Cushioned Cotton Swabs" was one of the aforementioned, hope-bringing tools I acquired recently to help me solve the problem of having clogged ears.

However, I will no longer be using them for that purpose because, despite the amount of earwax they were able to remove, I'm concerned that they also pushed earwax further into my ears, where it causes the clogging condition I was trying to cure. Frankly, using these cotton swabs to try to clean my ears was probably doing more harm than good, and I will now stick to using the "Earwax Removal Aid" solution as closely to "as directed" as I can manage.

In life, we are given many tools, all of which are wonderfully useful, if we use them correctly. There are many good ways to use these tools, and also many ways to misuse them. It is our job to learn to be careful with how and when we use each tool. Thankfully, some of them come with instructions, and God gives us directions for how to use others. Other tools, we can figure out by being prudent and listening to sound advice, including the warning labels on the backs of the boxes. With wisdom and good judgment, we can learn to use our tools well.

I regret having used my tools poorly, and I hope that I haven't caused too much harm to myself. I still have high hopes that this problem is merely temporary, especially if I use my tools more wisely from now on.