Meghan sat alone at the table, with a bacon, lettuce, and caviar sandwich, in her elegant  Cresleigh Domain house, with her charming image perfectly reflected in the gloss. She wore a navy-blue dress, and with her piquant naked face and tiny shoulders she was so perfectly a female creature. Bit of white nightgown revealed. Beautiful hair, but second fiddle to her gorgeous brown eyes and virginal mouth. She stared at me as if she did not know me. The pressure of knowledge behind her eyes was so immense, she might have been mesmerized. We are beings. We are emotional and rational beings. We are capable of understanding many of the things that happen to us, and unable to comprehend many others though we can still experience them. The lacks of comprehension are due partly to our attitudes or mind-sets, which limit our understanding to things that our word symbols can define or point toward. Partly the limitations are due to lack of development of our fullest functioning as immortal beings. As self-aware beings, able to look objectively at our own experiences, we find ourselves confused and anxious at times, overjoyed and ecstatic at others. We can search for many things: happiness, wisdom, perfection, enlightenment, identity, meaning. We can be effective in dealing wholly with the life we live, and we can attain some measure of significance. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

A person who has the vision of God is not devoted to a cause or to any particular issue—one is devoted to the Almighty God. “And what is it that ye shall hope for? Hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this is because of your faith in him according to the promise,” reports Moroni 7.41. We cannot and we must not allow ourselves to get distracted from our sacred duty. We cannot and we must not lose focus on the things that matter most. In the search for significance each of us will have to begin with who and what we are. Each must discover the fullest meaning of one’s individual and social identity. Each must admit into one’s consciousness as much of what one is experiencing as one possibly can. It is only with this full, open, honest acknowledgment of all that we are, that we can demonstrate first to ourselves, then to others, that we truly are significant, that we matter. We as faithful Latter-day Saints have the Holy Ghost as a constant companion to teach us the things of eternal value. Pause for a moment and check where your own hear and thoughts are. Are you focused on the things that matter the most? How you spend your quiet time may provide a valuable clue. When the pressure of deadlines come upon you, where do your thoughts go? #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

Are your thoughts and heart focused on those short-lived fleeting things that matter only in the moment or on things that matter most? What grudges do you bear? What excused do you cling to that keep you from being the kind of father, son, daughter, or wife you know you should be? What are the things that distract you from your duties or hinder you from magnifying your calling more diligently? Sometimes the things that distract us are not bad in and of themselves; often they even make us feel good. However, each of us seems to need, especially today, to know that our being here makes a difference. Each of us seems to need to know that our life has made at least a ripple on the pond of human existence. The search for significance is not a search for fame or notoriety or reputation or honor or a place in history. Significance is the realization that we are part of all that is going on, that life includes us, and that without us there would be a you-shaped hole in human experience. When we truly love our Heavenly Father, and the Lord’s soul, we demonstrate that love through our actions. It means living life because we are alive, and knowing that a part of life would not be lived if you did not live it. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

The search for significance also means being able to feel that right now, while still alive, you are a stimulus: that at least one other human being will respond in some fashion because of who or what you are, and even if you are lonely, scared, and alone, God is your true friend and knows you he knows you heart and cares about you and wants you to live and be happy and safe and well. I grew up going to the Elmhurst Seventh-day Adventist Church, at 9658 Thermal Street in Oakland, California 94605 and this is where I originally learned about the love of God. God is love, power, and splendor—and God is a mystery. His ways are far beyond us, but he still reaches out to us. God is infinite yet intimate, three yet one, all-knowing yet all-forgiving. We will spend eternity cherishing an ever-deepening relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is here to comfort us, guide us, and transform us to live as witnesses for God’s love. The same Spirit who inspired prophets and empowered Jesus, who shaped scriptures and created the World, enables and empowers each one of us. The Spirit activates the body of Christ, the church, through spiritual gifts and a humble attitude of service and compassion. The search is often a struggle, for life is certainly not a bed of roses. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

However, the Bible is ancient and timeless, a masterpiece of literature, and will show us our place in God’s plan and truth, and guide and shield us from deception. What God wants us to do is walk by faith. We must never consider our moments of inspiration as the standard way of life—our work is our standard. Our clients in psychotherapy tell us time after time that being alive is sometimes so hard that they think very seriously of giving up the fight. Some of them mean ending their lives, and a few try to. Other mean settling back into despair, defeatism, depression, infirmary. Other indicate that they often give up by settling for half a life. They live minimally, only staying around the edge of a full and fulfilled life. They take jobs that are unsatisfying or dead-ended, not because they have not the potential or even actual ability to have better, more challenging jobs, but because they cannot venture into the center and take the risk of being full and real. They cannot take the leap of faith that full living requires. They cannot jump from where they are—safe but unsatisfied, comfortable but unrewarded, easy but unfulfilled—to where they could be, because it is too dangerous. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

To be alive is to face risks. Some of these are physical risks: death, injury, disfigurement. Others are emotional risks: embarrassment, anxiety, rejection, guilt, shame, betrayal. And to be alive fully is to make yourself vulnerable as you open yourself up to all that can happen. Some of the experiences may be painful and offensive and even deadly dangerous. However, some of them, too, are wonderful, fulfilling, warming, exhilarating. So, just being alive is a struggle and fully of ordinary everyday risks. However, to seek the difficult, to search for the challenging, to demonstrate human effectiveness, in short, to be significant, is the biggest struggle of all. We must continually pray to forgive us our possessing as we forgive those who have tried to possess us. Are we humble enough to know that our lives are never big enough to bear the full weight of others’ lives? Can we allow others to fail without having it undermine our own life? Can we allow others to find their own satisfaction without having to draw upon that for our own satisfaction? If our need to help others is a disguised expression of our own uncertainties, then we exploit others by making them into extension of ourselves. We use them to support our needs. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

Thus, we have to ask whether we can genuinely free others from our own emotions and prejudices. Can we allow others the freedom to be who they are and to become what they intend? Our ways may never be the way. Our reality is always so much less than the larger reality of which we are only part of. A major trap in our desire to help is that of helping too much. One of the conditions under which help can be given must be that the helper does not too passionately wish to give it. This does not mean that one is indifferent or does not care. It means that one cares so much that the help given is real help that one will not insist on it being given when it is inappropriate. We must give up moving into another’s life-space. “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the World of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment,” reports John 16.7-8. Present reality is crucified for the sake of an unknown future reality. Reproduction in spirit depends upon an interruption in continuity. I am giving up my need to be needed. I am to let go of my desire for others to be like me. I am to decrease that others may increase. My movement is to be apart from the movement of others. I am to be a servant even as I do not allow myself to be mastered. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11

Growth never comes at the same rate or in the same way for every person. So our paths intersect and our paths move against each other and our paths move apart. We can be grateful when physical closeness changes into personal presence. We know what it is to be together. We then can become those selves which we truly are. The deepest demand upon the helper is this: I must give up my power and my relationship—my will and my love—what others might live their lives more fully. Am I able to help? To respond is to be real. To be real is to ready all of oneself for what life calls forth. What matters most, in the end, is maintain an active, thoughtful stance toward what is happening in life. We are to be receptive actively, taking in the truth of situations. We are to be active receptively, shaping the meaning of situations. We are to live and respond in the faith which is floating in water 70,000 fathoms deep. However, we do not know what other people are experiencing. Others withhold information necessary to the development of a mutually satisfying relationship. The nature of human beings is a philosophical subject, but it is of utmost importance to us in trying to understand how self-actualized for personal significance comes about. The study takes us to the matter of organic evolution as being. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

Human’s nature begins with the understanding of our physical nature. Our approach is naturalistic, but we know that many aspects of human’s nature lead us to deal with those experiences that are puzzling if dealt with only in naturalistic terms. Among these are human’s values. Some of the most important values of us throughout history is the search for pleasures, the search for perfection, the search for wisdom, for meaning, and for significance. The characteristics of humanistic psychology are directly related to our view of human nature. People’s own best interests, viewed in the light of a full understanding of our nature, are the criteria for the study and application of human psychology. Are you, however indirectly, looking for an adventure that will make you fully alive, that will shake and take you to your core, and give you back more than you can imagine? If so, choose to move in the direction of truly intimate relationship. Charles Darwin was thought to have an uneventful life and be an unassuming man in an unspectacular setting, but he probably produced a greater impact on out World than that of the more flamboyant figures—the Caesars, the Napoleons, the Obama’s and the Clinton’s. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

We are special creations of God with an exclusive soul. We do not have to find the right person in the very near future, but launch ourselves—at the optimal pace—into the work that makes this possible. If we do not do this, the odds are very high that our conditioning—which our unwitting permission—will continue to select our partners for us, repeating the pattern of leaving us in me-centered bonds that feature little more than two personalized sets of unresolved wounds interlocking and controlling the relation dynamics. To not remain mired in such relational automaticity is a huge step in developing the capacity for real intimacy. Knowing our conditioning inside out means being very familiar with our personal history, recognizing whatever wounding we carry (and how we tend to compensate for it), seeing how and where our conditioning has made our choices, and how and where it is still running us. Breaking our conditioning’s grip on us will not erase it, but will put us in a position where we are not at its mercy: being able to relate not from it, but to it. We will likely need some spiritual guidance to do this. A good place to start is to take a reactive pattern we have and, when we are not feeling reactive, look at it objectively, tracing the raw feeling of it back to when it first arose in our life, noting what triggered it back then. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11

Another area to explore is that of past traumas, which we coped with as children through survival strategies, like dissociating, going numb, diving ourselves, and so on. For many of us, these strategies remain our adult go-to methods when we face conditions that mimic our past circumstances. As natural as it may seem to turn away from or distract ourselves from our pain, we may want to consider practicing turning toward it, daily. When pain arises, acknowledge this as soon as possible, and then direct this undivided attention toward it, taking care not to turn it into suffering (meaning the over-dramatization of pain). Humor is often all that is needed to take care of an emotional problem, because, through humor, pain is acknowledge and put in perspective. Humor is one of those instant insights that puts us on a new place, able to experience negativity without necessarily needing to process it through behavior. We will find ourselves responding to problems with a lighter heart and a more compassionate disposition. And we will find ourselves having a lot more fun. “I have brought you glory on Earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the World began,” reports John 17.4. Now listen, stop worrying, God will not turn you loose for nothin’! #RandolphHarris 11 of 11