Most of us underestimate how challenging it is to raise a child. We may have certain beliefs and imaginings about how it must be like to have children. That is until you first baby is born. At birth, people are the most helpless and dependent of all beings. A child is born with needs, and with little in the way of built-in methods or techniques for meeting those needs. However, people are born into groups that care about them, so their needs for survival and nurturance are met and the individual flourishes. One also acquires attitudes and feeling about that first group—the family—that are crucial for the development of other attitudes and feelings that one will have in one’s social life. One of the first attitudes to develop is trust, so a child learns fairly quickly to depend on mother, on father, on siblings, on the family unit, and then, hopefully, on other people. In spiritual matters, trust includes relying on God and his spirit. To be trusted, we must first learn what it is to trust somebody else. We must feel the confidence in their words and promises. Who better to trust, and learn trust from, than our Heavenly Father? “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart,” Proverbs 3.5. Trusting that God will guide us requires a great deal of faith. And faith is developed over time through obedience and our best efforts. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

Growing up, our attitude-feeling of dependence on others is important for survival, for it consists of trust, affection, belief, hope, expectation, anticipation, and many other important social attitudes. Trust does start an important potential sequence of psychosocial attitudes moving. There are, however, some negative side effects that must also be considered in this situation. Dependence may become a clinging, parasitic kind of relationship-attitude. One of the most common problems found among alcoholics and addicts is a dependency conflict. This does not mean they do or do not depend on anything. It means that they seem to have an intrapsychic conflict over their dependency patterns. Intrapsychic conflict means that within their own personalities two or more parts or aspects of the personality differ in some response or perception. In long term psychotherapy with alcoholics and addicts manifest such a dependency conflict we have found many situations like the following (a composite of several actual statements): When I was really small, I remember how wonderful it was to be around my mom. She always took time out from whatever she was doing to talk to me, to play with me, to make or do something for me. I was the most important thing to her. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

Then my little sister was born. I found my mom giving her some of the time and attention that I had always gotten. I resented the little brat! However, I know that is wrong. You should not hate an innocent little kid who is not doing anything but being alive. However, I did! At times I still hate her. Sometimes I hate my mom for not being two people, or for not being able to give all her time and attention to me and my sister. I tried to find another mom in my teachers, but everytime I did what was necessary to make special friends with one of them, they withdrew, or another kid teased me and called me “Kiss-up!” I wish those kids would drop dead. Aw, but that is not a nice thing to feel either. Take my wife now. You would think she would be glad for all the attention I give her. I only want her to know how much I need and love her. However, sometimes she spends so much time with the baby that I never get to her until she is so beat and exhausted. Well, she things I demand too much of her sometimes. Not that she is not a great little woman, my wife. However, sometimes I hear her complaining about me or the kids making too many demands, and I swear I can hear my mother’s voice. Funny thing! #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

In the above excerpt are several examples of the dependency conflict. The most common example is in the excessive attachment to the nurturing figure, usually the mother. Also there is some kind of guilt or shame because of a realization of the attachment. We also find resentment at having to share the mother, hostility toward the ones with whom the sharing must be done, and then self-recrimination (the act or an instance of blaming or censuring oneself) for the hostility. These are usually extremely sensitive people who feel many emotions quite keenly and are often aware of how other people may feel. Frequently the dependency cycle is repeated with teachers, aunts, older siblings, law enforcement, clergy, Sunday School teachers, dates, and eventually spouses. Some parents’ style of behavior reinforces and supports the dependency of their children, with the long-range consequence that the child is incapable of functioning adequately on one’s own. In some cases, the persons in the authority position are using the subordinate person to meet many of their own needs. They would probably be indignant and hurt if it were suggested that they are selfish, for being self-centered in the sense that they are concerned about themselves at someone else’s expense, which may not be part of their conscious motivation. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

People who make the children dependent on them are in a real sense selfish, for they have unknowingly been meeting more of their own needs without considering the long-term well-being of their children. However, there are times when dependency is legitimate and useful. Occasions will arise in which a person needs help beyond one’s own resources. All of us must at times depend on others—doctors, teachers, counselors, repairmen, friends, parents—when conditions face us that are beyond our resources to handle effectively alone. Dependency becomes unreasonable when a person no longer seeks to develop one’s own resources to move to a more collaborative stance with persons in authority, but automatically assumes one cannot do anything without the guidance, support, and influence of others. A man with a dependency conflict of the type mentioned above will probably marry a woman who has a strong need to be a mother. She may complain and berate her husband for his clinging, yet unconsciously be very glad for it: it gives her the necessary assurance that she is needed and important. When the man attempts to solve his conflicts with alcohol, she frequently plays a complementary role, either accompanying him on his drinking route or buying him the necessary supplies. She justifies her actions by saying that he works so hard that he needs or deserves to unwind and relax. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

Even when she complains that he is drinking excessively, or that he is a rotten husband and father because he spends all their money on booze, he unconscious need may be for hum to continue in this pattern. It again reinforces her need to be needed: when he is at his most intoxicated, she is the most important person in the World to him. She is then his protector, guardian, mother, confessor, pal, and provider of comfort and support, even if it comes across as derogatory curses and deprecations. All human beings start out in life from a position of almost complete dependency on others. The development of the child away from complete dependency is the responsibility of those adults who occupy positions of authority over him. How to use authority to help others grow is the major challenge of every parent and every person in a position of authority. Too often authority persons become concerned with the wrong goals—parents want children who are only well behaved, teachers want only quiet classrooms or students who will do and say what they want; administrators want subordinates who will obey without question. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

One way to achieve these goals is to deliberately or unconsciously create dependency in others. Interestingly enough, many dependency-producing leaders never recognize their part in the problem, for they will often exclaim sadly, “What we need is more people who will take initiative and will not just sit around waiting to be told what to do.” In many cases, there seems to be a struggle going on between the adults, who want to channel or control, and the youngsters, who want to be independent and free to do as they please. It is this basic struggle that underlies counter-dependency. It is very difficult to treat this symbiotic—mutually beneficial and reciprocally stimulated—relationship in adult years, because the role played by the spouse is rarely brought to light. Too often in situations just like this, the therapist is frustrated to find the wife complaining about the changes in her husband as he goes through therapy. He is no longer the same man, so she can no longer be the same woman. This upsets her expectations and she often cannot tolerate the changes. Frequently, as the husband in such a situation begins improving, his wife gets worse. Often the wife will remove the husband from therapy, claiming that there is no improvement, that therapy is not working, or that he is improved enough and she can take care of things from then on. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11

By removing a person from therapy, who is treating their dependency addiction, can be demeaning and robs the individual of personal dignity. Such behavior can create in many persons a strong rebellion reaction. Some people gain a kind of secret delight in dominating another human being. “When we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the Heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that person. We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all people, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 121.37 and 39-40. One way of handling this awkward situation, one that is becoming a more frequent method of operation for many therapists, is to insist that in such a relationship both husband and wife be seen together. Possibly the treatment program would consist of husband and wife together with the therapist or in a group of couples, and individual sessions for husband and wide alone with the therapist. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

In this way, the entire symbiotic relationship can be explored and the wife’s role in her husband’s dependency problem can be explored and modified. The husband must resolve his conflicts over his own dependency, must learn to depend more upon oneself and accept the nature of the interdependency he and his wife can have with each other. The wife must learn to resolve her own conflicts, explore her need to be “Big Mama” to her own husband, and learn how to involve herself in a healthy, mature, appropriate relationships of mutual interdependency with her husband. This is fairly easy to describe; to being these changes about is exceedingly difficult. So while we come into the World ready to enter into a very deep and involved dependency relationship, one of the major tasks in the socialization process of each child has to be that of enabling the child to learn independence. This independence must be a matter of increasing self-reliance and autonomous decision-making. The healthy, self-actualizing adult is one who knows who he or she is, knows what he or se can and cannot do in a realistic, appreciating way. One sets realistic goals for oneself, pretty much by oneself, through acknowledging the contributions of others to one’s decision-making, and one is willing to take the consequences of one’s actions. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

How to achieve this growing self-reliance is a difficult matter. Ideally the process of growth from dependency to mature independence increases as we age. Yet there are so many things that interfere with this ideal growth: limitations in the individual person, like physical, mental, emotions, or social deficiencies and special requirements; resistance on the part of parents to let go and permit and encourage the growing independence of their child; a culture that encourages dependence and well-being mentality; and many chance or freak occurrences. Too often parents, especially mothers, make the mistake of holding on too tightly to their children. They either overprotect them or retain control of them far past the point of the child’s maturity. Some parents fasten on to their children through building in them a sense of obligation or duty to take care of their parents. In some cases, a parent can retain control beyond the grave, by setting up conditions for inheritance. One of the best explanations for why parents will do this is not that they are selfish or cruel but are simply frightened or unthinking. To see a child grow up is to be reminded that you are growing old. To see a child become independent may mean to feel unneeded, unnecessary, worthless. In a society that encourages mothers to live for their children, many women and sometimes men literally die when their children outgrow their strong need for them. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11

A healthy relationship to dependency is to recognize that all of us are going to be totally dependent on other people for a few things all our lives. Goods and services, love, intimacy satisfaction, respect, appreciation, companionship and affection are things that we must get from others. Other activities and situations may or may not require other people, but this depends upon our own attitudes in the matter. If, for instance, a person wants to paper one’s living room wall with Lincrusta Walton Wallcovering, one could do it by oneself. However, many people enjoy the companionship of shared labor and would invite friends or relatives to help in papering task, more for their social value than for their actual necessity in the job. Dependency, independency, interdependency: three words with overlapping relationships. They are important to us and we must individually work out our own attitudes toward them if we are to attain some measure of significant selfhood. “The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 121.46. No power on Earth or in Hell can conquer the Spirit of God living within the human spirit; it creates an inner invincibility. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11

Changing roles often bring new rules of etiquette, fashion, and other social behaviors. In looking at human’s social life, we are struck by several patters that seem to be always present. One of the first of these is cooperation. The early years of Sociology (the study of human’s social life) were heavily impressed with oversimplification of the writing of Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley, to the social experiences of humans. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species impact the Western World like an atomic bomb. It sent shockwaves rippling throughout society and forever changed the way many people thought about life and humanity. One of the first things Darwin’s theory of organic evolution did was to throw theologians into a frenzy, for he seemed to be challenging the account of Creation written in the biblical book of Genesis by saying that humans were not created in the image of God, but they evolved for apes. The other thing Darwin’s work seemed to do was to emphasize the important place played in nature by competition. Darwin declared tat those species survived best which could adapt to their environment, and he let loose a phrase which he later regretted: “The Survival of the Fittest.” Darwin had to write another book, The Descent of Man, to try to redact the misunderstandings, but it came too late. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13

The Social Darwinists—a name later applied to social scientists who applied “The Survival of the Fittest” to the social interactions of humans—had already begun their work in believing that to make it in life, one must stomp out the competition to prove they are superior. Many started believing that much like everywhere else in nature, humans are forced to compete with their fellow human beings, and must even overcome then in their natural struggle to survive. This unleashed all the justifications some people needed to perpetrate their competitive activities. People became rich because they knew how to compete better and were therefore more select and superior. Other lost their fortunes or were less affluent, lived in squalor and died, because they could not demonstrate their superiority and others are on the bottom because they are inferior. Charles Darwin’s work dealt primarily with lower forms of life, unequipped with a cerebral cortex and selectively developed nervous systems, did have to compete for survival, primarily with their physical environment, and secondarily, with other species of life. However seldom, even in the lowest forms of animal life, was there a competition or conflict within the same species. The exceptions are certain species of ant, the hyena, and a few birds. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13

The general rules, then, was intraspecies cooperation. The simplest form of life, the single-celled micro-organism, demonstrates the necessity of cooperative activity in the way in which cells, after splitting off, cluster together to form colonies. On up the evolutionary scale, the rule is divide (or reproduce) to live, but come together to survive and grow. The beginning of human life is a further example. After all, an infant is a result of the greatest cooperative act in nature: sexual reproduction. The coming together of two loving people, each bringing the necessary halves of a complementary whole to the relationship, is an action of supreme cooperativeness. No competitiveness allowed. One of the most frequent problems encountered in marriage counseling is an overly competitive attitude on the part of one or both partners in the marriage. This is disastrous at any level of a partnership. At the sexual level, it is a tragedy: one spouse trying to be the better lover of the two; one or other spouse trying to see who can hold out longest, or exhibit the best technique. This is not loving sexuality; it is a sideshow wrestling match. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13

After the sexual union, the sperm and the ovum further the cooperative process, joining together to merge forces and produce a new life form, the zygote. After the zygote is formed, it makes its way along the oviducts until it finds it home, the place prepared for it by the process in the mother’s uterus. There, nestling into the soft, blood-enriched walls of the womb, the zygote literally becomes part of the environment of the womb. Another cooperative act. A stubborn or resisting zygote passes out of the birth canal and no new life is developed. The entire nine-month period of prenatal development is one tale of mutual assistance after another. Not only does the mother’s body provide for the developing embryo, but the embryo does wonderful things, in turn, for the host environment. With healthy, love-inspired zygotes, where the mother really wants to be pregnant and to deliver a healthy baby, the pregnancy can give her a radiant, happy, satisfying feeling of wholeness and creativity. Many women attest (and their obstetricians confirm it) that they have never been healthier than when they were pregnant and when they strongly desired the pregnancy. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13

At birth, the child is thrust out of the wonderfully satisfying warmth and protection of the womb, in the loving arms of his or her or their mother and father in the physical World. However, to ensure survival, the baby needs love, affection, and protection. Humans, alone of most other beings in nature, needs someone else to help them survive. In contrast, animals move about immediately, can forage for food almost immediately, or can in some other fashion survive virtually unassisted. However, in addition to being born into this physical World, which can some times be cold, as humans we have evolved a cleaver and beautiful pattern: the family. The typical mother, due to the hormones in her body and the training she has received since girlhood, wants to be a mother, wants her baby, and wants it to live and thrive and grow and develop. This is not an instinctive thing. There appears to be no motherhood instinct; it is a learned behavior, and because it is so well learned, most mothers do everything they can to provide the necessary social environment for their newborn. The milk flows, the child ears, the family gathers protectively around, and the new life is encouraged to enter into the cooperative activity of becoming part of the family. #RandolphHarris 5 of 13

Charles Darwin knew this: the Social Darwinists did not choose to acknowledge that much cooperation goes into being human, forming a family, and keeping society together. Darwin knew that the natural selection process had enabled humans to develop the cortical matter of one’s brain over and above the primitive, reflexive parts. Because one could develop this cortex and profit from one’s experiences and become aware of oneself as a living being, humans differentiated from the lower animals and freed themselves from the rigid dictates of the survival of the fittest and are thus made in the image of God, to be loving and kind beings. Human’s brain, complex nervous system, their memory, ability to learn, and build are all evidences of their fitness. Humans have only to compete with those other forces in nature that might harm them or impede their development. It is in the evolution of a superior brain that humans became able to show their fitness eventually to master the physical environment. It is in the place of humiliation that we find our true worth to God—that is where our faithfulness is revealed. “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us,” reports Mark 9.22. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13

However, the Social Darwinists had other axes to grind (strong personal opinions about something that they wanted other people to accept and that is the reason they held so closely to their beliefs). Many of them were playing the game of Supermen and Wonder Women. Some men and Women had to be superior because there is only so much room in the upper echelons of society. Others, in accordance to the biblical doctrine of Original Sin, believed that Darwin had shown that humans after all, only a beast, and as such, still subject to the natural laws of tooth and claw (a reference to the sometimes violent natural World, in which predatory animals unsentimentally cover their teeth and claws with the blood of their prey and they skill and devour them). Of course, Salvations would transform the beast into a child of God, as our potential is unlimited and our inheritance is sacred, but of course that understanding came later. Others, in the World of industry and commerce, needed the doctrines of the Social Darwinists to justify their business expansions and the exploitations of human labor, particularly women and children. Slavery, too, since it was still practiced in America for a few years after Darwin, was justified in terms of Racial Superiority and Inferiority. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13

Competition, however, is a part of human life. Let us look as realistically as we can at this social process. In any context, nature or the neighborhood market, we find a fairly limited supply of goods and resources. Thomas Malthus, hundreds of years ago, started us thinking about the population problem when he presented a gloomy mathematical forecast: as resources increase arithmetically, population increases geometrically. People got worried, and well they might. Dr. Freud and Karl Marx and Charles Darwin were three people who read Thomas Malthus and did some serious thinking. Malthus’s answers to the problem of population demands outstripping the resource supplies were that: war, famine, old age, infirmary, and so on, would help; moderation in sexual activity would take care of the rest. Unfortunately, moderation has not helped much, and famine and old age, at least, have been virtually removed from the frontline of the battle. Malthus did not anticipate the technological revolution that would come. He could not know that our understanding of agronomy and other agricultural sciences would enable us to increase crop yields and virtually match the geometric increases of human population. We are dual beings. Each soul is comprised of body and spirit, both of which emanate from God. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13

A firm understanding of body and spirit will shape our thoughts and deeds for good. Malthus also could not predict that we would conquer many of these situations that caused infirmary he knew and expand the life-span of people, which was 35, to nearly 2.5 times what is was in 1776, when we had a World population of about 1.26 billion (7.44 billion today). So the problem became even more complicated: not only was life-span increases, but health and fertility were increased, so population continued to grow. Today, we face a problem of overcrowding that he could never have anticipated. Competition exists whenever supply is outstripped by demand. It has always been so, even when supply could match demand. There is no innate factor that makes us compete, but the physiological needs of humans are strong enough that when two or more persons want the same gratification for their needs, they will view for it, competing and even fighting to obtain it. This is seen mostly during holiday shopping, in the effort to enroll children in highly coveted preschools, and in other aspect of life that involve commerce and human beings competition for valuable resources. People call this The Law of the Jungle, though the real law of the jungle is cooperation and mutual assistance. Competition is the process of attempting to meet needs through activities that make individuals contenders for rewards or goals. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13

The competition, in many cases, is nonviolent, more often taking the form of verbal contest. Two beautiful women compete for the attention of the same man, not by fighting, but by trying to be more seductive, attractive, alluring, and so on. Is competition good or bad? This is a difficult question to answer. Those of us who attempt to analyze the society will find that American life is based on a strong system of competitive attitudes and behaviors. It seems to fit, or be demanded by, the economic structure. Of course, the Social Darwinism mentioned before is a very powerful factor even today and makes competition unnecessarily important. Since we have to acknowledge that the social and economic life in this country is very rich and well developed, competition has apparently been good for us. If economic affluence were all that we had to worry about, this would be a satisfying answer. However, we are interested in a deeper problem: human’s feeling of loss of significance. We share the feeling of numerous other social scientists that the economic competitiveness that has built America into the most power nation in the World, with the greatest productivity in the World, has contributed to the breakdown of many personal values, including the personal sense of worth. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13

This is a hard saying. It seems like an attack on the style of life that we have all lived with. We are not doing that, directly. As any analyst does, we find things within the system that are unworkable, maladaptive. These things need fixing, changing. When any aspect of a system works against the best interests of the people who the system is supposed to serve, then that aspect is malfunctional and needs remedying. The competitiveness which in the past enabled one person to content with another for customers, land, positions, privilege, and a mate has too often become the dog-eat-dog viciousness which says, in effect, it is every person for oneself. Tis attitude is not only morally wrong (since it denies the sense of community which our social system needs), it is also bad science. It forgets that the very basis for survival, throughout human’s recorded history, has been the ability to work cooperatively and to take an interest in the well-being of others. This can work in complementary fashion with the necessary competitiveness that carving out a way of life may demand. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13

What about the fall-out of this excessively competitive way of life, the losers in the contest? Too often in the competition, the winning of the struggle means a conquest. The winner does not just get his point, or his goal; the loser is vanquished, defeated emotionally, made to feel completely worthless. Thus, in many modern forms of competition (especially in the commercial and business World), the game moves over into the third type of social process, conflict. And conflict is a desperate, no-holds-barred matter. Conflict is probably as old as life itself and some would say that it is just right. Our understanding of human behavior should enable us to make some distinctions between those kinds of natural phenomena that are necessary and those that we have outgrown as human beings. Conflict, in the sense of fighting and warfare within the species of humanity, is an outmoded and certainly dysfunctional social process. Dysfunctional means not serving the survival needs of the organism or the structure. So we have three basic social processes: cooperation, competition, and conflict. Of the three, cooperation and some forms of competition seem to be functional, while vicious competition and conflict can be shown to be devastatingly dysfunctional. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13

The proponents of instinctive aggression claim that competitiveness and conflict have just as much natural origin, are just as functional, and have just as much survival value as cooperation. However, many experts believe that a full evaluation of the biosocial nature of human beings will point up the dysfunctionality of continued hostility in a World growing daily more crowded. It is the aim of eugenics to eliminate, so far as possible, the unfit stocks, which by their constitutional defects lower the level of human achievement and increase the difficulties of social life. However, in the state of our knowledge today, and probably for some time to come, this is extremely difficult. So complicated is heredity, so various the order followed by the inherited genes in constituting the new individual, that the more cautious investigators sometimes think it may take thousands of years before we can make much progress, through methods of deliberate selection, in raising the level of race. However, there is a simple method of working towards the purification of the race which as perhaps prevailed from the beginning and been held in honor in the highest civilizations, including those of Greece and Rome, from which we ourselves so largely descend. We know in the back of our minds that only God can save us. “And now let us be wise and look forward to these things, and do that which will make for the peace of this people,” reports Mosiah 29.10. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13

Very well. I am going to lay down the law to you. If I am to remain with you, I am the Master here. And I refuse to prove myself to you. I will not spend my tenure with you being constantly questioned as to the virtue of my authority! Case in point. Whatever I saw out there, I choose to forget. And you have to forget it too. Happiness is the object of our existence; and will be the end thereof, if we pursue the path that leads to it; and this path is virtue, uprightness, faithfulness, holiness, and keeping all the commandments of God. Humans are born into a social group, their family. Many forms of animal life develop something to human families, but none with such complexity or holding power. Since no animal appears in all nature to come into the World so defenseless, so helpless, so dependent, the human family provides, first of all, a nest, a context, an atmosphere, a buffer against the rest of the World. In this family are virtually all the satisfactions our basic survival needs. In addition to meeting these needs, the truly happy family offers affection, warmth, and security, which are essentials of a later stage of development. However, if the parents give the child the satisfactions for one’s basic needs in accompaniment with the attitudes and behaviors of warmth, love, affection, and pleasure, the child nests into the family structure more easily and gains an attitude toward interdependency that serves one well at every stage of one’s development. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

The family also provides legal and social status for the child. One has a name, legally given, with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto, and in the legal eyes of the society, one belongs to somebody and in fact is somebody. One has a legal and group identity. One’s social status (or more correctly statuses) contain several positions that the child occupies. Some of these statuses or positions are ascribed to or conferred on the child at birth. If male, he is given at birth a set of privileges and expectations that the society gives to each male. If female, she also is given both privileges and expectations for her behavior, all social and culturally prescribed. Even though we may have some uphill struggles in our lives, our attitude will determine how we face them. By setting worthwhile goals and keeping our heart and mind focused on them, we will learn self-discipline and accomplish much. Yes, there will be times when climbing a metaphorical mountain grade will be about as much as we can bear, but do not give up, make sure your purpose in life is fixed. Serving an honorable mission, graduating from high school or college, and being worthy of a temple marriage, at your age, may seem like very lofty goals, but if you start climbing now you will be so much better prepared to accomplish them. People who have been wrought upon by the Spirit of God will be healed. #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

If the child is the first-born, one has certain privileges automatically: undivided attention from the parents, the first choice of family names, and the distinction of giving the father and mother their new status as parents. As part of our Heavenly Father’s plan, we are into families. He established families to bring us happiness, to help us learn correct principles in a loving atmosphere, and to prepare of for eternal life. Parents have the vital responsibility to help their children prepare to return to Heavenly Father. Parent fulfill this responsibility by teaching their children to follow Jesus Christ and live the Savior’s gospel. Parents have the first responsibility for the spiritual and physical welfare of their children. A child may, in certain sub-cultures, be automatically Jewish or a Christian by virtue of being born into a particular family. Of course, the formal baptism, confirmation, or coronation may take place later, but because the child is born into a particular family with a particular religion, the youth is raised in terms of that religion. And, there are many ways that goodly parents can access the help and support they need to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to their children. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

As we reach certain milestones in our life, it is helpful and instructive to reflect on the events and experience of the past. Every day, we must teach our children and possess the ability to be grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing us with a very long life. So much has changed during our lifetime, but we are all ascribed the status of racial groups, socioeconomic groups (called social class), nationality groups, and so forth. There are other statuses that we will have to reckon with as well. There are the achieved or attained statuses that one will have as a result of growth or some effort on our part. A person will become a man or woman, an adult male of female. One will become at a certain age a driver of cars, a purchaser of adult commodities like spirits or some other substance, a fully investitured citizen, a voter, draft-eligible, a student, and in later life, a senior citizen. One will earn the status of employee or employer, the statuses that come with earned promotions and advancements in one’s career, the status of husband or wife, father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, and others. An individual will earn trophies, medals, ribbons, diplomas, degrees, certificates, as well as demotions, unemployment insurance, retirement, employee of the month, and other earned statuses. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

Each status or position in the social structure carries with it a set of behaviors that are expected of the person in that slot. The expected behaviors are called roles and can be pleasant or unpleasant. Additionally, they can come into conflict with each other, as when the role of student, with hours of homework to do each night, even on Saturday and Sunday, comes into conflict with the role of friend or date, with social activities to do! Sometimes school even demands that we miss out on precious family time and some high school and college students have required courses on Saturday, Sunday School on Sunday, and along with traditional school or college, they may also work and be required to go to Bible study during the week. The process of personal and social adjustment is concerned with the management of the various role conflicts that come with living the complex lives our society encourages. Through all the fast-paced changes occurring around us, we earnestly pray and work to ensure that the values of the gospel of Jesus Christ endure. Already some of them are in jeopardy of being lost. At the top of the list of these values and, therefore, prime targets of the adversary, are the sanctity of marriage and the central importance of families. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

So, the family provides an anchor and the safe harbor of a home where each child of a loving Heavenly Father can be influenced for good and acquire eternal values. It also provides a definite context for the important education that each child needs. Even before formal schooling, all children are educated with the family structure. In fact, the development of the core of personality, with fundamental learning skills, emotional experiences, attitudes, preferences, and social patterns, usually takes place in our society before the child even enters kindergarten. Furthermore, there is scientific evidence to show that the experiences of the first five or six years can so condition the direction and temper of a child’s life that one virtually becomes what one was raised to be. As the twig is inclined, so grows the tree. However, as powerful as early experiences are, the child is capable of becoming one’s own person, even if it means throwing off the influences of those early, formative years. This is not easy, but again, achieving significant selfhood is never easy. It is a struggle, and many do not follow throw on it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

Life for some is so enjoyable for some as a family that they want to follow the example that their elders set, in an effort to continue on through experiencing the same joy that had been theirs in their younger days. The education that takes place in these formative years is important. The attitudes, myths, beliefs, ideas, likes and dislikes that are learned, informally and subtly, may form the basic foundation upon which that child builds one’s entire life. We can see this best illustrated in racial attitudes. In a family where a child is told that members of certain ethnic groups are less affluent or less desirable, and where one also observes that no members of those groups ever visit the home nor participate in any of the fellowship activities of one’s parents, a negative (or at the very least, a neutral) racial attitude is formed. Further, if one is prevented from enjoying their friendship, possibly even being prevented from attending school, club, or religious meets with members of those groups, a very definite bit of learning has taken place. It is small wonder that as an adult one should have fixed attitudes toward those groups. Culture is defined as the way of life of all people. There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11

This gospel culture, or way of life, comes from the plan of salvation, the commandments of God, and the teachings of living prophets. It is given expression in the way we raise our families and live our individual lives. However, in clever and carefully camouflaged ways, the adversary is attacking commitment to family life throughout the World and undermining the culture and covenants of faithful Latter-day Saints. Parents must resolve that teaching in the home is a most sacred and important responsibility. In keeping with our belief that each individual has the potential ability to become everything one can be, we believe that even a prejudiced person can change some of his or her attitudes, can be educated in the formal and the informal sense, and can develop an optimistic attitude toward members of other groups. However, to reiterate, the unlearning and relearning is difficult, just as the unlearning and relearning of emotional responsiveness is difficult. Yet it can be done and, to editorialize, it must be done if we are going to try to bring order out of chaos, if the ideals of equality, brotherhood, sisterhood, and justice are to be actualized. Other institutions, such as church and school can assist parents to train up a child in the way he or she should go, but realize this responsibility ultimately rests on the parents. According to the great plan of happiness, it is goodly parents who are entrusted with the care and development of Heavenly Father’s children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

In terms of the educational process that the child experiences within the family, we must mention the learning of other social skills. Not simply manners and etiquette, but the kinds of skills necessary for each child to learn to live in a World full of other people. There are various stages of development experiences at various stages in a child’s life. Powerful and fixed as these patterns may seem, they are not absolute. Parents should pray in earnest, asking our Eternal Father to help them love, understand, and guide the children God has sent to them. Many believe that in the first stage of development, the child acquires the social skill called trust. If the stage is mishandled, or the culture or property or other conditions cannot enable the child to experience the feeding -nutritive-contact relations fully, then the child not only does not learn trust, one learns mistrust. In the culture of less affluence, trust becomes a virtual luxury, and mistrust becomes the attitude that guarantees survival. It is dog-eat-dog World (ruthlessly competitive: one has to look out for one’s own interest), and everybody must be mistrusted, even those who call themselves “friend.” Do not forget that we are choice spirits and have been endowed with the priceless gift of free agency. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

Social workers, Peace Corps, and VISTA volunteers (a national service program designed to alleviate poverty), civil rights workers, and may others who have gone into areas of less affluence declare there is the attitude of suspicion and explain they face mistrust, and which they have the burden of relieving even before the poverty and squalor can be abated and remediated. Each of us has been given the freedom to choose liberty and eternal life, or to choose captivity. We need not be victims of circumstance, for unto us is given to achieve and become perfect, even as our Father which is in Heaven is perfect. People who truly love us want us to gain the deep and abiding satisfaction that comes from rendering the maximum service of which we are capable. Our lives are supposed to be enriched to overflowing blessings and happiness and love and safety as we realize the fulfillment of our fondest hopes and noblest aspirations. If we follow the divine path established by the Savior, we cannot fail, for we will have fulfilled the measure of our creation. “And again, it showeth unto the children of humans the strictness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, as the Savior having set the example before us,” reports Nephi 31.9. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11

In education and in psychotherapy, we have found that even the most mistrusting, suspicious, hostile-defensive people can unlearn that set of attitudes and relearn trust and cooperative interaction. It takes time, affection, determined effort, patience, empathy, understanding, and a lot of tender, loving care, but it can be done. Trust, autonomy, love of God, initiative, industry identity, intimacy, generativity, and ego integrity are among the most important social attitudes and skills that can be listed. However, we do not agree that trust starts an irrevocable chain reaction, automatically leading to autonomy and the rest, any more than we believe mistrust bumps shame into guilt, and so on. At each stage of development, the person becomes more proficient and confident, one exercises that choice-making capacity and can become a truly autonomous, self-actualizing person. If we deny or cover up anything that is at home in the soul, then we cannot be fully present to others. Hiding the dark places results in a loss of soul; speaking for them and from them offers a way toward genuine community and intimacy. One can always recognize who has been through the fires of sorrow and received oneself, and know that you can go to that individual in one’s moment of trouble and find that this trusted individual has plenty of time for you. God will make you nourishment for other people. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11

When everything gets difficult, the people who stand by you without flinching–they are your family.

Our physical and mental well-being is not only a priceless blessing to yourself, but a heritage that you may pass on to your descendants. With good health, all other activities of life are greatly enhanced. A clean mind in healthy body will enable us to render far more effective service to others. It will help us provide more vigorous leadership. It will give us every experience in life more zest and meaning. Good health is a noble and worthwhile attainment. Western minds, dividing things up into dichotomies like subjective and objective, rational and emotion, have to solve the problems caused by such thinking. In the Eastern mode, since there are no false divisions, there is no need for what the French call rapprochement or bringing together-again. However, Westerners, who set up polarities, have to deal with the gap. When a Thesis, like Reason, calls forth an Antithesis, like Emotion, we neatly dispose of the gap by delivering a Synthesis, a proper balance, a good or appropriate unification. Or in Taoist fashion, we bring the two back into a more natural relationship. This synthesis is precisely what humanistic psychologist are attempting with the concepts of Reason and Emotion. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7

As Homo Sapiens (Humans, the Wise or Discerning), we have a superior brain that enables us to think logically and rationally, to control the passions and instinct-like drives, and to live in ways that transcend our natural existence. We learn, remember, associate, innovate, create, and transmit our insights in written symbols. We are, clearly, superior beings! Yet too often we find people ruled by their passions and denying any intellectual abilities other than those that serve or justify the passions. And, when emotions overrule and deny the intellect, humans once again become the brute animal from which one supposedly evolved. Newspapers daily carry descriptions of people ruled by greed, lust, hate, love, ambition, and so on. Just as often, however, we find people ruled by their logic or intellect, denying any emotions or feelings, giving attention to science and technology often to the total exclusion of considerations for the rest of humankind. Complaints are voiced daily that the American government is thus oriented, that more government funds are spent on increasing research and technology and assistance to foreign than are spent on solving social problems such as racism, pollution, poverty and overpopulation. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7

The proper synthesis may not be easy to define and certainly will not be easy to arrive at. However, it appears that there is an optimum life style that includes a balance of both emotional reactivity and the rational approach  and this is how we get a full-functioning person in terms that come very close: Psychological adjustment exists when the concept of self is such that all sensory and visceral experiences of the organism are, or may be, assimilated on a symbolic level into a consistent relationship with the concept of self. This means that any experience, emotional, perceptual, or rational, should be consistent and congruent with the person’s own concept of who one is. The Word of Wisdom leads to clean habits, thoughts, and actions. Obedience to it will make one more receptive to the Spirit of God, which cannot dwell in an unclean tabernacle. Follow the gospel plan that provides for solid work, clean entertainment, and activity to promote growth of stature. Possibly the best measure of the stature of a person is in their own home, at their own fireside. As one looks hopefully forward, what conclusions has one reached about marriage, the home, and family? #RandolphHarris 3 of 7

What valued does one place on the old-fashioned American home with its goodly number of children, its religious atmosphere, its prayer, its blessings and its rather Puritanical idea about duties and obligations, including deference and respect for parents and older folk? The foundation of a happy home must be laid during premarital days. Young people should keep their associations on an uplifting, spiritual, level Moral purity is an eternal principle. Its violation destroys the noblest qualities and aspirations of human beings. Purity is life-giving; unchastity is deadly. Human beings have an essential nature of their own, some skeleton of psychological structure that may be treated and discussed analogously with one’s physical structure, that one has needs, capacities and tendencies that are on their face good or neutral rather than evil. There is also involved the conception that full healthy and normal and desirable development consists in actualizing human nature, in fulfilling these potentialities, and in developing into maturity along these lines that this hidden covert, dimply-seen essential nature dictates, growing from within rather than being shaped from without. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7

Apparently, we have to come to grips with the ongoing conflict in our institutionalized way of viewing ourselves. Since we currently have some patterns of living that view humans as a Thinker, they need to be enlarged to recognize human’s needs to be a Feeler too. To do so would involve our educational systems, literary and publishing ventures, scientific, technological, and government agencies. Similarly, the agencies that view humans only as emotional, like the entertainment, recreational, theological, ecclesiastical, and art media, need to be retooled to take into account the important place intellect and reason have in out lives. “May the LORD answer you when you are in distress. The Earth is the LORD’s and everything in it, the World, and all who life in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters” reports Psalm 20.1 and Psalm 24.1-2. We must be true to God’s holy laws. Remember, they cannot be broken with impunity. If we would be happy and successful in our Earthly association, courtship, and home building, we must conform our lives to the eternal laws of Heaven. There is no other way. Remember that no great nation has ever fallen without first becoming morally corrupt. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7

There are many things that set us apart from our animal relatives. Among the chief of these is our cognitive ability. Our rational processes have enabled us to put two and two together in a fantastic number of ways. The tools we build are the physical proof of our cognitive abilities. The artifacts and the edifices we create are monuments to our intellect. We need, however, to cultivate the cognitive ability in everyone, not just among the small elite group who will be set aside as The Thinkers. We dare not let this kind of thing occur or we will become, even more than we are now, a society of narrow, restricted specialists, with the Thinkers at the top of the heap. Each human being is Homo sapiens, not just those with diplomas and degrees after their names. The society must take this into serious account and redesign its programs and policies to allow for the thinking capacities of all its members. In addition, human beings are also blessed with an abundance of emotions with which one can react, which can motivate one, and which certainly can, if fully known and appreciated, enrich and enhance one’s life. The body is the soul presented in its richest and most expressive form. In the body, we see the soul articulated in gesture, dress, movements, shape, physiognomy, temperature—in countless expressive forms. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7

We can respond to the pleasures and pains of each person around us, not in a pathological sense which brings us too much into the lives of others, but in the fulfilling sense which brings us too much into the lives of others, but in the fulfilling sense of knowing each other and becoming able to empathize more fully with others. Self-understanding comes only with the optimum development of the capacity to identify with and experience the feelings of other people. This is called the capacity social interest or social feeling. The realization of the dual nature of human life, the cognitive and the emotional, should excite our interest, not frighten us away. If, through letting bot aspects of our nature out, we can more completely experience situations, then possibly we will have come a lot closer to the deal of self-fulfillment or self-actualization. Are we sometimes asked to do for others what may seem to be beneath us, or what is tiresome and momentous? Was not the Son of God born in a stable? Did he not make himself a servant, even to washing the feet of his disciples? Love one another. Serve you’re your fellow humans. The example has been given you. Therefore, let us never get tired of being patient and preserving and generous, living in harmony and, if possible, at peace with all people. “My soul standeth fast in that liberty in which God hath made us free,” reports Alma 6.9. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7

God sure does answer prayers…sometimes I just have questions and like immediately, the answer comes. I do not look for the answers nor always look for signs, I just let them come to me naturally. Like, I pose a question in my mind sometimes and moments later I get the answer through various mediums. We know our habits, our weaknesses, or strengths, our quirks. If all the fact were in, we would find that the so-called distinction between emotion and reason do not really exist at all. Existentially speaking, there is a real difference because as most of us live our lives, we act, think, believe, and perceive in terms of one or the others. However, we think the difference is only a fiction, created by the minds of humans. In observing things, we not only perceive our perceptions but something which is neither ourselves nor our perceptions. The is wisdom of that in the attempt to communicate an important truth, there is no difference, or rather, no distinction or boundary, between us and our experiences. We are part of all that we experience; all that we can experience is part of us. The threshold created between Emotion (intuition, sensuality, feeling, or soul) and Reason (intellect, knowledge, cognition, logic or mind) was put there because in Western Civilization, there exists a strong tendency to make boxes, pigeonholes, categories, and blueprints. Into these boxes go our ideas, patterns of thought, reasons, relationships, and many other things without which we are quite sure we would be lost. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12

For instance, it is necessary for us to build a box labeled “Good” and another we called “Evil.” By this categorizing what we thought were mutually exclusive opposites or polarities, we could easily sort out experiences by placing them into either one or the other box. We did the same with Truth and Falsehood, Beauty and Ugliness, Love and Hate, Right and Wrong, and hundreds of others things. All this is done in the name of somebody’s need for conveniently obtained answers! Among the convenient distinctions we have all made (one that Existential and Humanistic Psychologist are trying to overcome) is that between Subject and Object. Behaviorists have tried to make this distinction the strongest of all by de-emphasizing any subjective aspects an experimenter’s work and forcing one to deal as objectively as possible with one’s data. The clinicians, beginning with Dr. Freud, were aware of the importance of the subjective experience but were careful to keep the subjective and the objective clearly apart. For example, most of the analysis that Dr. Freud insisted his psychoanalysts undergo in their own training was for the purpose of bringing the analyst’s unconscious to consciousness so that one could clearly and purely interpret one’s patient’s words without contaminating them with one’s own subjective wishes or fears. The analyst’s mind had to be even more sterile than the surgeon’s hands! #RandolphHarris 2 of 12

Humanistic psychologist would like to being the subjective and objective back into the sameness that they actually are, to remove the artificial separation that medieval thinkers have built. Emotional, intuitive, subjective experiences are part of the process of knowing or perceiving any objective person or thing. We know from laboratory and field research that perceptions are greatly affected by what we bring to them. We know, for instance, that hunger in a person can cause one to think that he or she actually sees food or food-related words. We know, also, that is one is hunger a person will see more food, food-words, or signs relating to food in one’s external environment than one does when one’s hunger is satisfied. This is called Perceptual Set. The perceiver has certain expectations and focuses attention on particular aspects of the sensory date: This one calls a Selector. Therefore, the World a person sees is heavily influenced (and biased) by one’s own past experiences, expectations, motivations, beliefs, emotions, and even their culture. Perceptual sets create a tendency for us to view things only a certain way and can impact how we interpret and respond to the World around us and can be influenced by a number of different factors. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12

The perceptual event is more than either the subject doing the perceiving or the object being perceived, separately or added together. In similar terms, there is no difference between knowing something emotionally and knowing something rationally. Our feelings and our ideas are quite realistically and affectively interwoven. Take the following example: When I was on the Squarehead square rigger bound for Buenos Aires, full Moon in the Trades, the old hooker driving 14 knots. I lay down on the bowspirit, facing aster, with the water foaming into spume under me. I became drunk with the beauty and singing rhythm of it and for a moment I lose myself—actually lost my life. I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became Moonlight and the ship and the high dim-starred sky. I belong, without past or future, within peace and unity and wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself! To God, if you want to put it that way. We will have yearnings and desires for certain things, but not until we are at the limit of desperation will we ask. It is the sense of not being spiritually real that causes us to ask. We have to get out past the harbor into the great depths of God, and begin to know things for ourselves—begin to have spiritual discernment. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12

The experience of delving deeply into subjective awareness is a total self process, not just a mental exercise in book learning or logic. There are three systems of knowing: Sensate Truth: Obtained through responses of the Sense Organs. Rational Truth: Obtained through logic, reason, and the Scientific Method. And, Ideational Truth: Super-rational and super-sensory, it is obtained through direct intuition, revelations, and the sudden enlightenment of Insight. In a real sense, then, we are answering the question of relationship between Emotion and Reason by throwing the question away! Yet, something must be done with the existential fact that, though in nature there may be no distinction, our unnatural minds have created the fiction of such a distinction and we live, most of us, with fiction. Since we live as if emotion and reason were separate and not only exclusively separated but mortal enemies of each other, we get caught in several binds or dilemmas. As a scientist a person is expected to del uncompromisingly with the facts of objective reality and never let one’s own subjective reality intrude into one’s research. The most important part of one’s subjective reality that must be kept out, or at least corrected for, is one’s own feelings. To further highlight this illustration, a scientist with cancer should be capable of being disinterested in the results of one’s research on a cancer cure! #RandolphHarris 5 of 12

To be effective, a scientist should be able to abstract oneself out of one’s work, so that if the formula fails to cure cancers one will not feel disappointment nor anger, and if it succeeds in curing cancers in one’s laboratory animals, one should not feel anticipation nor hope nor joy that it might spare one’s own life. In actual practice scientists are not capable of such superhuman abstraction. They are human. They experience the full range of emotions and acknowledge that there is tension in their research: they are aware of the strength of their emotional reactions and motivations and at the same time of the need to keep them from interfering with research. Why do our relatives, the animals, not exhibit any such cultural struggle? We do not know. Very probably some of them—the bees, the ants, the termites—strove for thousands of years before they arrived at the State of institutions, the distribution of functions and the restrictions on the individua, for which we admire them today. It is a mark of our present condition that we know from our own feelings that we should not think ourselves happy in these animal States or in any of the roles assigned in them to the individual. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12

An illustration from outside the field of science presents itself as these words are being written. One of the authors is missing a party he would like to be at and is angry and resentful, but his reason tells him that the editor’s deadline for this essay will be reached only by working at this very time. Conflict! The emotion is strong and real because at the party are people he very much enjoys and would like to be with. However grudgingly he recognizes the validity of his reasoning: he is rushed in meeting his deadline because of his own poor scheduling of time. A renationalization (poor timing calls for sacrifice of pleasure!) is called forth to soothe the strong emotion which otherwise might interfere with his effectiveness at writing. Therefore, it is clear that nothing is free. The opportunity cost of an item is what you give up to get the item. When making any decision, such as whether to sit down and write, decision makers should be aware of the opportunity costs that accompany each possible action. In fat, they usually are. Writers who can earn millions if they miss a party and sit down and finish a chapter are well aware that their opportunity costs of going to a party is very high. It is not surprising that people often decide the benefit of the party is not worth the cost. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12

Rational people systematically and purposefully do the best they can to achieve their objectives. Therefore, the author had more of an incentive to get his work done, after all, he will make a lot of money by working, and there will be other parties.  An incentive is something (such as the prospect of a punishment or a reward) that induces a person to act. Because rational people make decisions by comparing costs and benefits, they respond to incentive. Fate is looked upon in the strictly religious sense of being nothing else than an expression of the Divine Will. The people of Israel had believed themselves to be the favourite child of God, and when the great Father caused misfortune after misfortune to rain down upon this people of his, they were never shaken in their belief in his relationship to them or questioned his power or righteousness. Instead, they produced prophets, who held up their sinfulness before them; and out of their sense of guilt they created the extremely strict commandments of their priestly religion. They had incentive to appease God in order to gain eternal life. It is remarkable how differently a primitive human behaves. If one has met with misfortune, one does not throw the blame on oneself but on one’s fetish, which has obviously not done its duty, and one gives it a thrashing instead of punishing oneself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12

Thus, we know the two origins of the sense of guilt: one arising from fear of an authority, and the other, later on arising from the fear of the super-ego. The first insists upon a renunciation of instinctual satisfactions; the second, as well as doing this, presses for punishment, since the continuance of the forbidden wishes cannot be concealed from the super-ego. We have also learned how the severity of the super-ego—the demands of conscience—is to be understood. It is simply a continuation of the severity of the external authority, to which it has succeeded and which it has in part replaced. We now see in what relationship the renunciation of instinct stands to the sense of guilt. Originally, renunciation of instinct was the result of fear of an external authority: one renounced one’s satisfactions in order not to lose its love. If one has carried out this renunciation, one is, as it were, quits with the authority and no sense of guilt should remain. However, with fear of the super-ego the case is different. Ere, instinctual renunciation is not enough, for the wish persists and cannot be concealed from the super-ego. Thus, in spite of the renunciation that has been made, a sense of guilt comes about. This constitutes a great economic disadvantage in the erection of a super-ego, or, as we may put it, in the formation of a conscience. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12

Instinctual renunciation now no longer ha a completely liberating effect; virtuous continence is no longer rewarded with the assurance of love. A threatened external unhappiness—loss of love and punishment on the part of the external authority—has been exchanged for a permanent internal unhappiness, for the tension of the sense of guilt. Basically, first comes renunciation of instinct owing to fear of aggression by the external authority. (This is, of course, what fear of the loss of love amounts to, for is a protection against this punitive aggression.) After that comes the erection of an internal authority, and renunciation of instinct owning to fear of it—owing to fear of conscience. In this second situation bad intentions are equated with bad actions, and hence comes a sense of guilt and a need for punishment. The aggressiveness of conscience keeps up the aggression of the authority. This tell us that conscience (or more correctly, the anxiety which later becomes conscience) is indeed the cause of instinctual renunciation to begin with, but that later the relationship is reversed. Every renunciation of instinct now become a dynamic source of conscience and every fresh renunciation increases the latter’s severity and intolerance. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12

However, our charge is to increase in Wisdom and favour with God and with our fellow beings. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and humans,” reports Luke 2.52. All of us, like the Savior, can, and must, continue to advance all the days of our lives in all that really matters. How shall we do this? How shall we continue to increase in wisdom and statue and favour with God and humans until we reach the perfection that should be our destiny? The road lies before us. It is clearly marked out. Our course is clear. We must follow the strait and narrow road marked out for us by the Son of God in all that we desire, think, and do. We must imitate him in our mental growth as we search for truth. Let us never fear truth, but only its misuse. On the contrary, let us love truth above all else—for God himself is truth. “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all they getting get understanding,” reports Proverbs 4.7. The genesis of conscience is in point of fact not so very great, and we see a way of further reducing it.  “Blessed are they who seek to learn wisdom. Seek not for riches but for wisdom, and behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded to you, and then shall you be made rich,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 6.7. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12

Some read that lamp of their own conceit; who interpret by rules of their own contriving; who have become a law unto themselves. This does not harmonize well because it is intellectual pride that leads one to think one is self-sufficient in matters of mind and spirit. Let us ever realize the difference that exists between a discoverer of the truth and the Lawgiver of all truth. The first is human; the other divine. There is an all-too-prevalent spirit of experimenting with things that have already been proved beyond doubt. It finds expression in such phrases as, “You only live once,” “I will try anything,” “You are only young once,” “Be a good sport,” “Times are different,” and so forth. Times are different, but fundamental remain unchanged. Honesty is still honesty. Virtue is still virtue. Truth is still trust. Honest effort is still rewarded. Gravity still pulls all things to Earth. Disregard for law still brings punishment. Two and two still makes four. The Ten commandments are still in force, as are all the other laws of life, nature, and the Universe. People and nations cannot break the Ten Commandments; they can only break themselves upon them. “And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite  goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy all things,” reports Mosiah 5.3. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12