We find that fear has been a part of the history of individuals ever since the World began. However, let your life stand as a beacon to all as someone who magnificently developed one’s own gifts through facing challenges. It takes a particular brand of cynicism to profitably run an extreme culture outfit. The media and entertainment industry cynically and blatantly prey on the cravings of naïve people. They clearly know their audience and why they are attracted to these prophets of the perverse. Tribulations, afflictions, and trials will constantly be with us in our sojourn here in this segment of eternity. The Savior reported in John 16.33, “In the World we shall have tribulation.” Therefore, the great challenge in this Earthly life is not to determine how to escape the afflictions and problems, but rather to carefully prepare ourselves to meet them. There is evidence of the increasingly virulent strain of extreme individuality that the new conformity to Worldly values is giving rise to. In an era where everybody is special, people are starting to believe that you have to go the extra mile. They think they have to do things like a reporter once did, he had on-camera live liposuction in front of a studio audience to boost his ratings and get notoriety. Gross sells, and so does anger, outrage, and evil. Extreme emotion expressed in extreme ways. The goal of this kind of entertainment is descried as the creation of pure and unrelated presents in time. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
In other words, entertainment will do whatever is necessary to rescue us from what is perceived as the mundane realities of daily life. This has always been the project of popular culture: to give us a sense of aliveness amid a reductive system of anonymous power subsources reducing us to various categories of crowd. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves because to overcome this Worldly behavior demands persistent effort to develop patience as a personal attribute. In practicing patience, one comes to understand it and to acquire it. Do not allow your hearts to be faint, as though some strange thing is happening unto us, for we have seen these things beforehand, and have an assurance of a better hope than that of our persecutors. God has made us strong and able to endure burdens. We glory in our tribulation, because we know that God is with us, that he is our friend, and that he will save our souls. We must have patience in order to withstand pain and grief without complaint or discouragement, which detract from the Spirit. It is necessary to have patience in the face of tribulation and persecution for the cause of truth, which sets an example because the manner in which we bear our cross will be an influence to others to help lighten their load. Patience must be our constant companion during the journey which carries us toward that great goal. We must continue in patience until we are perfected. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
It should be made clear that we are not talking here about a passive patience which waits only for the passing of time to heal or resolve things which happen to us, but rather a patience that is active, which makes things happen. By being patient, we have to continue to do things well. Patience in affliction and adversity means to persist firmly and never forsake that which we know to be true, standing firm with the hope that in the Lord’s due time we will gain an understanding of that which we do not understand now and which causes us suffering. One lady remembers her parents standing in the doorway, talking to each other. “We have no more money.” At that time Jamaica had no public high schools nor universities. Those with academic inclinations took extra classes with the head teacher in their teenage years and with luck made it into teachers’ college. Those with broader ambitions had to somehow find their way into a private school and from there to a university in the United States or England. However, scholarships were few and far between, and the cost of private schooling was prohibitive for all but a privileged few. The parents of the young lady had paid the tuition for the first term of high school and bought the uniforms and had exhausted their savings. What would they do when the second-term fees for their daughter came due? And they could not send one daughter to school and not the other. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
The grandmother of the young ladies was steadfast. She sent both—and prayed—and at the end of the first term, it turned out that one of the other girls at the school had won two scholarships, so the second was given to the young lady in need. Making the effort to concern yourself with more than your own need is rewarding. We are all Heaven sent. We are the beautiful adornment of the human race. Our roles are special and unique in the Lord’s work. It is important that we have a strong faith, work hard, nurture others, and act as caregivers with the feelings of charity and benevolence. It is important to display acts of faith, devotion, obedience, and righteousness. No matter what circumstances we experience, our influence can be marvelously far-reaching. Some people have a tendency to underestimate their profound blessing in the lives of others. More often than not, like the girl who shared her scholarship with a student in need, it is not on the stage with some public pronouncement but in one’s example of righteousness and the countless gentle acts of love and kindness done so willingly, so often on a one-to-one basis. On occasions when you ache for that acceptance and affection which belong to family life on Earth, please know that Our Father in Heaven is aware of your anguish, and that one day he will bless you beyond your capacity to express. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
When the key is turned to you in the name of God, knowledge and intelligence shall flow down from this time. This blessing of knowledge and intelligence comes to all righteous people. Thee blessings flow to those who willingly perform the work of Angels. It is very substantial to make our homes a refuge of peace and happiness in a troubled World, which is healing from its infirmary. When we stand before the bar of God, there will be little mention of how much wealth we have accumulated in life or of any honors which we may have achieved. However, there will be searching questions concerning our domestic relations. Many are convinced that those who have walked through life with love and respect and appreciation will receive from our eternal Father the words, “Well done, you are a good and faithful person, enter into the joy of your Lord.” Sustain and be encouraged in your many callings. Be grateful for deep love that you are blessed with. If you want to have a sense of belonging and peace, it is your job as a child of God to match your inner drive to become your best self with how you can benefit in the World. The real barrier to happiness is fear. Fear of failing, fear of success, fear of financial losses, and fear of the unknown all hold us back from our destiny. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Fear is a deterrent to growth and change throughout life. The only reason any of us finally risks anything is that the potential rewards outweigh the potential strain. Think of some of the risks you have taken in the past. The promised benefits must have been worthwhile enough for you to move through your fear and go for the prize. Leaving home for college or a career, asking for a date, and traveling to a new city or country are all risk you have taken because the possible reward was greater than the possible failure. Studies show that the act of risk-taking itself—independent of the success or failure of the venture—increases one’s self-esteem. Fear is the overriding challenge to be met in all significant human endeavors. Why is fear part of Earth life? Perhaps our Heavenly Father’s greatest hope is that through our fears we may choose to turn to him. The uncertainties of Earth life can help to remind each of us that we are dependent on God. However, that reminder is not automatic. We must choose to take our fears to God, chose to trust him, and choose to allow him to direct us. Moving beyond fear and taking goal directed action is the primary requirement for evolving into a full-fledged person. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Unless we face the reality that fear can stifle us. Working increases our abilities, and as you feel your abilities increase, you will feel more secure. If we recognize that we must live God’s commandments and pray to him, there are things he will direct us to do that will help calm our fears. These actions often require great courage and direction from the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost may help us to understand when and with whom we should share our fears and try to do things that we have never done before. There is no getting around fear. It has to be faced directly. Our Heavenly Father brings peace, a respite from fear and anxiety. We only need to worry about pleasing the Lord and some of our fears will evaporate. Remember how you felt when you applied for a job your never thought you could get, bought a house you never thought you could afford, or gave a speech in public that you were scared you would mess up? Remember how you felt as you neared the moment of truth—exhilarated, anxious, full of energy—and the wonderful release you experience once you reached the point of no return and succeeded? What a blessing and a relief to be past the fear barrier, on your way to success. Even if we fail sometimes, at least we have overcome that uncertainty, worry, and stress. We are always doing what we cannot do yet in order to learn how to do it. Psalms 27.1 reports, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The World could be so much richer than the World we have settled for. Immortality is a grace with which the soul was endowed by the will and power of God, and consequently it can be destroyed by the will and power of God if it has proved itself unworthy of the grace bestowed on it. Human knowledge of God is largely dependent upon the psychological dispositions of the individual. The true purpose of human nature is to be found in the contemplation of God. While God knows all things in one perfect, unchanging act of knowledge, things do not thereby exist in God in such a way that they share his essence. The intellectual conflicts of the age have to do with the fact the majority of people are losing interest in authenticity. They want more of the fake. If we live in a fake World, then we will embrace that fake World by making it our special World. For instance, the primary goal of many travelers is neither to lie passively in the Sun nor to discover a culture different from their own. They go on vacation for one reason only: to be entertained. For must of us, discovering what we are born to do is no easy task. Neither is pursuing our destiny once we have found it. However, those individuals who are at this very moment living our their most deeply felt life scripts (and we all now at least one person in this category) prove to us that such alignment is possible, and wonderful. However, if what we do or make is not up to our standards and does not reflect attention and care when we stand back to look at it, the soul suffers. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
The whole society suffers a wound to soul if we allow ourselves to do bad work. When it is not possible to feel good about our work, then soulful pride, so necessary for creativity, turns into narcissism. Whether your calling is acting or farming, engineering or raising children, building houses or helping others feel good—and whether you believe the calling is the result of some cosmic force or simply the real you struggling to get out—how you reconcile your survival needs with your inner urges to give to the World is one of the most important factors in your happiness and sense of self-worth. Do a little soul-searching. Far less attention is given to the nature of human beings and the soul than to the purpose of why human beings were created and their dignity as the image of God. The powers of the soul on the levels of sense, reason, and free will are considered almost exclusively in their relation to divine grace. We have rational standards of human nature or of law pertaining to our own natural dignity as the image of God, the supernatural gift of grace, and the indwelling of the Spirit. With the likeness to God, our goal is of ethic and human life. The individual has an absolute need of grace for virtuous acts, and under that grace, we must do good despite the weaknesses of human nature. The result should be a moral doctrine that is for more optimistic, beneficial, and righteous than negative in character, an ethic of dignity. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Many people are buying a version of individuality and rebellion. Their doctrines tell them: Be who you are, do your own thing, but pay for it with your credit card and please no swearing, there are kids present. How would you characterize the overall quality of your life’s work and experience? Does one year roll into the next, not much different from the one before, or does each year bring exciting challenges and achievements? When someone asks what you do, do you respond proudly, optimistically, or offhandedly, apologetically? Do you wake up each day excited to begin your day, and go to bed each night satisfied that the goal you are struggling for is worthwhile? Does it fit who you are? Do we really want our memories to be given to us by disillusioned set designers, off kilter reporters, and leaders who do not care about how their love-hate attraction and their work is reshaping the World? Of course not. We want our memories to be personal, unique. However, the more we seek precrafted entertainment as the primary focus of our lives, as a way to give the meaning to our lives that these heretics promises us our lives should have, the more our memories are shared, colonized, and implanted. Meaningful is different for different people, but in general, a meaningful life is one lived according to one’s most deeply held values, truest talents, and unique capacity to leave this World—which includes family, neighborhood, workplace, church, profession, children, the environment—a little better off for one’s having been there. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Human destiny is marked by struggle and suffering, and freedom, which we understand as partly the struggle for national liberty. God and matter are coeternal. Mind and body are opposed principles both ontologically and axiologically. Mind originates in Heaven, whereas body belongs to the real of temporality. The body is the physical shackles of the soul; passions lay people below the beats, whereas mind makes people equal to immortals. The urge (and ability) to leave a beneficial mark on the World is nature’s way of elevating us to the plane of self-discovery. Most of us have a vague sense of what we were born to do. Unfortunately, some people feel s consumed by their jobs and their extracurricular activities the way they are currently constituted that they bypass the opportunity to cultivate new ways to contributing what they want most to contribute. Many people protest that they are unable to adopt new life visions because they cannot disappoint their families, jeopardize their financial security, or make the changes they deem necessary to be happy. Losing the ability to feel productive or to earn income, experiencing the loss of the empty nest, skill obsolescence, or just plain bad lucky often catapults people into examining what it is they would really like to be doing for the next twenty or thirty years. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
The World is made up of opposed and dangerous forces at permanent war. Both knowledge of the World and of the existence of God derived therefrom are flashed upon the mind suddenly and simultaneously by divine inspiration. Through this struggle, order emerges out of chaotic disorder, and spiritual power triumphs over great confusion. Struggle and suffering are not mere evils, but have a beneficial, creative aspect as well. The spark appears only after the flint is struck hard, and the soul that has endured temptations nourishes the body with eternal fire. Human life has an aim only if it contributes to the realization of liberty, honor, and dignity. The goal of ethics is that in all that we do and think we help to realize the future permanence state that flows from the nature of human beings and their environment. This is the state of maximum utilization of powers, and hence of maximum stability, toward which all evolution strives. Each of us must risk everything in order to perfect our personality in accordance with the nature and extent of our abilities and to place ourselves entirely at the service of human society. Some students have the hours of a lawyer trying to make partner, or of a medical resident. To become a success at what we do, we have to shed some part of our own identity. Human evolution is heading toward a state of complete stability and toward the marking out of the defining forms of permanence, that is, of invariably repeatable, fixed components of mental acts. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
The most basic feature of all the goals of our thought and creative work is permanence or durability—the realization of ever recurrent, repeatedly used ways of acting and the establishment of enduring forms amidst the profusion of particular configurations. An example of this is the tendency of thought toward stability, the striving for a stable conceptual system. What matters is the work one is willing to put in to cultivate their mind. People have made a bargain with the educational community. They get up before six in the morning, are in class at seven and go home at five in the evening; go in on Saturdays, and do homework until eleven at night six or seven nights a week. In return, these students are promised that these who are wealthy or stuck in poverty will be given a chance to be successful and do something that will help their families and humanity. As a result of their dedication and the education they receive, 84 percent of these kids will perform at or above their grade level, many will get scholarships, and 80 percent of the graduates will go on to college. How could that be a bad bargain? Success follows a predictable course. It is not always the brightest who succeed. Nor is success simply the sum of the decision and efforts we make on our own behalf. It is, rather, a gift. Human knowledge, like all other events in the World, including human actions, is under the direct supervision of God. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
People who have been given opportunities—and who have had the strength and presence of mind to seize them are the ones who help to build a better World. We need to replace the patchwork of lucky breaks and arbitrary advantages that today determine success—the fortunate birth dates and the happy accidents of history—with a society that provides opportunities for all. All some people need is a chance and they will understand the miracle of meaningful work. Just as organic evolution tends toward the production of permanence states and the human brain approaches more and more a form of permanence, the spiritual and intellectual evolution of the human likewise tends to permanence states. We strive for the completion of science, for the perfection of social institutions and customs by progressive adjustment of national and social difference, and for the fulfillment of art through emphasis on the typical and essential in the phenomena. Everyone has a call, to his or her own particular destiny, and each of us must make peace with that inner voice over and over again through life. We must search our souls many times. We are crafting ourselves. Movements toward destiny can be scary. It takes a leap of faith necessary to follow your heart. For most of us, it also takes time, forbearance, and a willingness to risk what is for what could be. Sometimes it is best to take a leap of faith and find the courage and wisdom to do what we were are born to do. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The beginning is hard, and by the end of it they are restless. Part of life is endurance, part of it is motivation. Part of it is incentives and rewards and fun stuff. Part of it is good old-fashioned discipline. You mangle it all together and discover grit and self-control. A person is a certain sort of living organism whose identity depends on its biological organization. On the other hand, a person is also defined as a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, the same thinking thing, in different times and places; which it does only by the consciousness which is inseparable from thinking and essential to it. Further, as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of the person. People who are shut out from actually participating and making meaning through localized cultural exchange depend mainly on prefab fun to legitimize their lives. Often guidance counseling is based on the assumption that people cannot learn in areas where they do not begin with natural aptitude. A student’s life direction is often decided by his or her talent. Many suffer the tragedy of spending their lives in careers they never truly cared about, all because of some aptitude they happened to demonstrate in high school. In fact, many people adopt the premise that they must tailor their desires to their talents and abilities. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
The first half of life many people are unable to see that their vocations and hobbies are works in progress that add meaning to their lives, rather than having true value. If individuals suspect that they may have been educated away from their natural inclination toward learning over performance they may get stuck in performance mode. When one remains in performance mode, growth, change, expansion, independence, learning, inventiveness, and self-generated progress all become difficult. As a result, some people want and need constant stimulation and satisfaction. Only partly able to establish identity by having a place in a community and being able to reach their peers through the electronic mediums of communication—the tentacles of mass culture—some seek other ways to get into the action and reaffirm their desire to be noticed. Many do as they are told; giving themselves over to the World of popular culture and invite it to make them feel special. The outside World rewards task demonstration, not task question, and both performers and learners base their sense of self-worth largely on how well they perform. Performers tend to focus too much on the things they do well, and shy away from learning situations in which they are sure to experience some short-term failure. They are likely to get stuck in ruts, and often become complacent and bored. This is who so many have become: people who cannot sit still, people who desire ever further immersion in the spectacle. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Learners, on the other hand, fail to make the most out of the performance mode, frequently out of fear of boredom, but often out of fear of long-term failure. Most of us know at least one perpetual student who hung out at high school or college long after graduation, or who went on to pursue many degrees, but not a career. Some learner types are career jumpers, trying out many fields of endeavor in order to avoid failure in one; still others stick to one vocation, but follow their own interest to the point that they are not as productive as they could be. Certain learners actually see learning itself as a kind of performance. Learners are often dreamers, unwilling to commit to the complacency of performance. Ironically, natural learners who push themselves to perform (usually in a job) are just as likely as performers to get bored. Organizations succeed by taking the idea of cultural legacies seriously. Some schools have ten-hour days and shorter Summer vacations to prevent kids from losing ground. After school is out there are homework clubs, detention, and sports teams and they even go to school on Saturdays. The extra time allows for a more relaxed atmosphere. The extended time gives the teacher the opportunity to explain things, and more time for the kids to sit and digest everything that is going on—to review, to do things at a much slower pace. We should be wise in explaining and pursuing our positions and exercising our influence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Communicate with a curiosity and an appetite for learning. The happiest and most productive people are those who make good use of both their intrinsic interest in leaning and their spontaneous enjoyment of performance. Both task modes—learning and performance—are essential to exceptional competence. It may seem counterintuitive, but when things are done meticulously it allows the teachers and students to get through a lot more. There is a lot more retention, better understanding of the material. It lets the entire classroom be a little more relaxed. They have time for games. Kids can ask any questions they want, and if the teacher is explaining something, he or she does not feel pressed for time. This allows them to go back over material and not feel time pressure. The extra times gives the teachers the chance to make subjects like mathematics meaningful. These students see the clear relationship between effort and reward so they are not stuck asking, “How does this apply to real life?” Some students who were not good at math have gone on to be accounting majors in college just from spending about 60 percent more time in school each year. That is why certain students from other countries do so well with education because they look at it like a career in their youth and dedicate their time. The same formula goes for the wealthy kids in America, after school many of them have tutors and spend their Summers and Winter breaks in Summer school or intercession and preread the material for the upcoming year. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
Awkwardness and mistakes produce anxiety (“I may never master the task”), which is compounded if others are concerned over the task competence as well. Whether you are trying to become a competent swimmer or competent actor or competent engineer, the learning mode can bring on feelings of incompetence that then develop into a sense of challenges as performance, with time and effort, improves. We have to focus and continually will to reach goals whether they be material or spiritual. Human beings are easily distracted, fall victim to sin, often quit because of obstacles or tests, and so for us perseverance is a virtue to be cultivated and practiced if we want to achieve our goals. Over and over again we see God not being stopped from loving his people and blessing them. He persevered for centuries in his love for people who might have been considered unlovable. There are days when we get it right; there are stretches where our love perseveres through temptations and obstacles and weak flesh. This should feel good as it is a high point spiritually for a person. Mastery peaks when one is in the performance mode. In the part of task development, the sense of challenge is gradually transformed into a sense of pride. Performing a task you are now good at is exhilarating. The emotional high you feel from success at a difficult job is one of the best gifts life has to offer. “God’s love and mercy for me was present before the creation of the World and he has and will persevere in it, despite the ups and downs of my love, until and beyond the end of time,” reports Ephesians 1.4. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
When people feel dulled and distanced, unengaged and, worst of all, unentertained, that is when they engage in extremist behavior. For an ever-increasing number of people, the harder they work to proclaim their individuality—whether it is through participating in ever-more-extreme popular culture immersions or radically rejecting those programs altogether—the more extreme they feel they have to get. A desire for opportunities to articulate their individuality is the legacy of a popular culture that then tries to satisfy such a desire with ever-more-immersive attractions. These attractions are so extreme and over the top that they make it even harder for many to imagine anything they can do in their daily lives to match that level of intensity. Thereby, they feel even more devalued and distanced from their normal selves. And therein lies the trap: The day comes in every endeavor when one’s masterful performance yields more boredom than exhilaration. Boredom can turn into disenchantment, with its concomitant lack of concentration and desire, and a noticeable decline in mastery and satisfaction. If you go to work like a good boy or girl, you are labelled boring. However, how far does the good boy and good girl need to go to shake off the aura of Corporate Ken or Corporate Barbie? The more extreme culture gets in order to satisfy one’s urge to be immersed and entertained, the more extreme real-life antics meant to attract attention also become. #RanddolphHarris 6 of 9
It is a loop—extreme acts in real life must then be concerted into extreme entertainment, which leads to another round of real-life extremists trying to enter popular culture by being even more extreme than what they see on the television. People become trapped in a cycle of boredom and craving for one-shot celebrity, prompting a culture of “turn it up” which is spun to keep raising the pitch of its own superlatives. Just what are people prepared to do to get their moment in the star light of celebrity? Absolutely anything. No wonder public explosions of rage and mayhem seem more common. Many people turn to extreme acts as a predictable response—a way to get noticed. Extreme action gets noticed on television and the perpetrator can enter the gates of fame. All of this because people are essentially shout out from making meaning through established models of conformity. However, instead of being extreme, if you have reached the place on your present learning curve where increased effort results in diminished returns it is time to change curves. If you do not make it your business to invest in a task with ever evolving challenges (that are safe and productive), the law of entropy will take over and transform what was once an activity that brought you pride and joy into a routine effort devoid of satisfaction. Once you have reached peak levels of mastery in whatever task you choose, you cannot simply go back and start over—you have already developed the skill. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
People are nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions in a constant state of change. When a person confuses what is right from wrong because of mental laziness, in makes one content with superficiality. Once launched upon this convenient path of error, the mind is led further and further along it by certain recurring facts—it is easier for one to overlook than notice gradual changes that are characteristic of certain objects, and changes that occur according to certain smooth and regular patterns, and so many choose to overlook them. Everyone is prone to this error, which therefore acquires the dubious sanction of custom. It is a good thing that God perseveres, because if he did not we would be like those cosmonauts in the movie Apollo 18 who discover dangerous aliens on the Moon and are not allowed to return home. We do that to ourselves with sin and ignorance and neglect. We cut ourselves off from a loving God and become infected, increasingly paranoid, delusional and drift into the darkness and unknown. What you have to do is to ride the wave of performance as long as it is exciting for you, then move to a new curve. Performers do best if they wait as long as they can, then jump onto a shallow curve that allows them plenty of performance pleasure and little frustration. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
We should live peacefully with others who do not share our values or accept the teachings upon which they are based. Love is the very essence of the gospel. “Love one another as I have loved you,” reports John 15.12. God reminds us to stay close and reattaches us to himself through his love whenever we begin to drift away and reaches out to rescue us and being us back to safety. We are to live in the World, but not be of the World. We must live in the World because it is like Heaven, whose function is to raise the whole mass by its function and influence. Wise people must turn away from wrath. We should follow after the things that make for peace and speak the truth in love for the wrath of humans is not what the righteous God wants. Even as we seek to be meek and to avoid contention, we must not compromise nor dilute our commitment to the truths we understand. We must not surrender our positions nor our values. The covenants we have made inevitably cast us as combatants in the eternal contest between truth and error. There is no middle ground in that contest. Loving and kindness is required just like the Master will be firm in truth. God transforms us by not letting us remain as we were, but sculpting us into a new creation ready for eternal life with him in Heaven. We should love all people, be good listeners, and show concern for their sincere beliefs. This will never stop; the God of Heaven will always persevere until all is complete. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
When it is small, we should ask God to increase our hope, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown. True religion is found only where people worship the genuine and living God. The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul. God calls some people out of darkness and into his marvelous light so that we might go back into the darkness and shine brightly unto every generation of God’s people. Many people are so anxious to be noticed for who and what they are. We have communities arising that anyone can join, so long as they conform to the particular restrictions and enthusiasm—the mindset—of the group. Again, the created community serves no real purpose other than to provide individuals a place where they can be noticed, where the narrative of their lives can be manufactured and infused with meaning. Both popular—culture and other types of communities offer assurance. Individuals receive an identity, the opportunity to perpetually reinvent and the comfort of knowing that they have a place in the World (no one can challenge, dilute, or replace). Although these types of new communities seek to give people back what they seem to have lost, a place in the World, false religion is always from the worship of untrue gods. Eternal life itself, which is the greatest of all gifts of God, is available to those only who know God. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
It is all the rage in this modern World to worship false gods of every sort and kind. There are those who bow before idols of wood and stone, and others who lisp their petitions to icons and images. There are others who worship animals. Idolatry is nothing new, of course. Human nature is a perpetual factory of idols. People make idols of power, beauty, success, money, and celebrities. None of this is inherently evil, but they become sinful when they are treated as divine. Matthew 6.21 reports, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” People who love a certain celebrity or popular phenomenon so much that they link up with like-minded others and spend their time and money pursuing this passion are a familiar popular-culture phenomenon. The mass-culture industry encourages these fans because they individually deepen the person-product bond and, I there are enough of them, they create new secondary markets for figurines, magazines, conventions, and so on. Fan clubs offer only a partial resolution to the urgent need for self-expression, and they provide little in the way of a true creative outlet or assertion of control. As a result, people’s enduring and widening obsession with popular culture is now yielding a strange fruit: thriving subcultures that convey the heartfelt desire of the millions who long to be known. They have formulated their own truth, and answer to the lie of popular culture. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
In the same way that some retreat to the confines of the cult or the safety of a fundamentalist community in order to be noticed, many more find refuge in popular-culture communities where they find what they crave: community recognition, spiritual meaning, and the ability to reinvent themselves. However, true wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of self. It is the first principle of revealed religion to know the nature and kind of being that God is. “We know and testify that there is a God in Heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of Heaven and Earth, and all things which are in them,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 20.17. Nonetheless, some people are pioneer creators of online popular communities. They often start sites, which are like online fan magazines, dedicated to the worship of a particular celebrity and they become so obsessed that they can tell you from a picture what date and time it was taken, and they often think they know the actors better than the actor knows him or herself. As these individuals watch their profitability expand, some of them quit their jobs and support themselves from the profits they make from these online fan magazines. They are addicted to the online community they oversee and feel a sense of responsibility towards their subscribers. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Albeit, I imagine it can kind of be a high to attract three-quarters of a million visitors a day to something you created, and where visitors post their thoughts on their favourite television shows, movies and celebrities or products. These communities allow people to read a brief description of the main points of something that has happened or been seen. There are also incredibly elaborate overviews of what happen in an episode of a show or movie, or what a person ate and how they respond to their fans in person. Visitors also have the opportunity to read and post to the forum, where various performances are debated, and arguments rage regarding such matters as who the best couple is, and so on. The people go to the site to find like-minded individual who can validate and listen to their opinion. They look for people who can agree with them and the realm can become obsessive and bizarre. People who run these sites are not always ethical and use them to seduce pictures and try to date fans of the actors. A vice-president of marketing for one hit movie franchise actually made a statement: “We love our fans. We want them to have fun. But if in fact somebody is using our character to create a story unto itself, that is not the spirit of what we think fandom is about. Fandom is about celebrating the story the way it is.” Sometimes the fans in these communities think their opinions are gospel, and they have a very inaccurate view of what community is. Hopefully it is not the only “community” they are in. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
The closer fans get in their online communities, the more cliquey it get. They sit around and tell each other they are great, their observations about the show are great. Ultimately, people visit these sites mainly to have their existence and their opinion validated. They are not as interested in other people as they are in reading their own posts and having their wit and knowledge admired. Not only that, but some of them seem terrified at the prospect of losing their forum, the only place—community or not—where their particular genius and knowledge is valued and recognized. Some of them definitely replace real community with their online fan magazines. These people could stand outside and make some new friends, but they prefer these popular platforms where disparate souls form instant connections because they want to be somebody, recognized and noticed the same way their popular starts are recognized and fawned over. And they also seek meaning and vestiges of tradition, a connection to community and spirituality that belies the specious allure of fame. It helps them keep the loneliness at bay by assuring them a place where they will always be understood, noticed, recognized. Where once an interest in Paris Hilton, Aaliyah, or Reese Witherspoon that lasted beyond boyhood would be considered embarrassing, today such an obsession provides a grown man with a fan base, an audience, an individuality, even a community. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
And what I find amazing, is some of these celebrities, like Aaliyah, are so iconic that they even have several celebrity fans who acknowledge how great of a contribution they have made to the World. Magazine even have people who look like them dress up in a style the celebrity would have worn. And in the real World, even if a fan is of a different culture, has a different hair colour or skin tone, they still invoke the image of the popular star that they love and add their own flare to the style. You will see a blonde young lady going to prom dressed similar to Aaliyah (may a different color dress) with the same hair style from the 2001 MTV awards, with a boyfriend dressed in sports gear like Aaliyah’s boyfriend Damon Dash. People want to get further, deeper, faster into the popular culture that dominates their lives, and they are increasingly willing to abandon normal life to achieve what popular culture promises them. It is charming, but also remember some of these fans can be very mean and it is important not to let them diminish your love for your star and never to replace you star for God. No invented community can ever fully embody or fulfill what seem to be an inherent conflicting human need for both a particular unique identity and a sense of having a place in a society, a culture, a community that one will always be able to identify as homes. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
We can ourselves from the bondage of having to constantly be free. In order to get the most out of our complex collection of our life roles, we must make conscious choices. People who commit to continually recreating their roles discover a new found sense of personal control and greater satisfaction in all the roles they choose to play. Our Eternal Father ordained and established laws—called the gospel of God—which enable us to advance and progress and become like him. We alone cannot save ourselves. None of us can call forth our own crumbling dust from the grave and cause it to live again in immortal glory. None of us can create a celestial Heaven whose inhabitants shall dwell in eternal splendor forever. No one, but God has the power to cleanse and perfect our human souls. The truth about God, the truth about religion, the truth about salvation—these things can only be known by revelation. Our testimony is that the Almighty God is our Eternal Father who lives in realms celestial. Come worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Come worship the Lord, the Almighty, the king of creation. It is okay to enjoy some of the entertainment and have role models, but we must also turn to the Lord our God and repent of all our sins and seek the truth. Oh, God our Father, will you look upon your children everywhere in love and mercy, grant us repentance, and lead us in your holy way so that we may gain peace in this life and eternal life in the World to come. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
In this mortal World, even millionaires worry, because as we all know, money cannot buy love, and money cannot buy immortality. The intrinsic rewards of your work, or of anything you do, for that matter, are your hidden assets. No global monetary fluctuation, no office politics, no invasion by strange people can take away your enjoyment and satisfaction in what you do. Your best security is the ability to get the most satisfaction from whatever tasks come your way. Ironically, those of us who get the most satisfaction from our work tend to be top performers who have plenty of self-esteem—two qualities that are associated with increased earning potential. Adulthood offers us the opportunity to remake work in ways that make it more relevant to our most heartfelt needs and desires. Mature adults are surprised to learn that they are skilled enough, experienced enough, even secure enough in their earning power to enable them to transform the work they do to make a living into more than just working for a paycheck. At the very least, they are able to see that no matter how much money they make, it is important to pursue satisfaction somewhere, too. The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart. #RandolpHarris 8 of 9
Few of us have more than a vague idea of what our personal satisfiers are. We are in the habit of gauging our work primarily by the worth it commands on the open market, not by how well it matches our inner urges to grow. Many people are unable to see that their vocations and hobbies are works in progress that add meaning to their lives, rather than ends in themselves. It is also important that our bodies should not be exhausted by long confinement, nor our minds bewildered by excessive and prolonged application. Rest also presents particular opportunities for strengthening cognitive and analytical skills. It is when we are relieved from the state of tension that we acquire the habit of thought and reflection, and of forming our own conclusions, independently of what we are taught and the authority of others. We formulate new ideas by analogy, working from what we know toward what we do not know. A mind must be cultivated. However, not too much, least it be exhausted. Human life was created on the basis of freedom of choice. God wants free people and people who serve him freely. It is therefore a challenge in everyone’s life to choose the straight and narrow path which avoids a life which lacks eternal direction. With the promise of divine guidance, we can follow one step at a time, with patience, hope, and faith. Decisions we make today will influence our future course, our future strengths and abilities. Know your destiny and follow it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Care of the soul requires ongoing attention to every aspect of life. Pursuing divinely appointed responsibilities in righteousness, unity, and equality will prepare us to meet God. In his infinite love and mercy, our Lord has provided a harbor where, through repentance, our barnacles fall away and are forgotten. With our sous lightened and renewed, we can go efficiently about our work and his. The long journey that many of us experience under difficult circumstances are trials of faith. Faith is forged in the furnace of trials and tears and are marked by trust and testimony. Only God can count the sacrifice; only God can measure the sorrow; only God can know the hearts of those who serve him—then and now. Lessons from the past can quicken our memories, touch our lives, and direct our actions. We are prompted to pause and remember that divinely given promise: Wherefore you are on the Lord’s errand; and whatever you do according to the will of the Lord is the Lord’s business. If we want to continue to make top-notch contributions to our lives, we have to live righteously and be more care to guard our own physical vitality (which many of us put at risk during extended periods of stress) and our relationships with people we live (which many of us unilaterally feel we have to put on hold wen the need arises). Sometimes our lives are out of balance. Search diligently, pray always, and be believing and all things shall work together for your good. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Through humble prayer, diligent preparation, and faithful service, we can success in our sacred callings. As we slow our pace and rebalance our life, our relationships will grow stronger and improve, and the morale of our colleagues will progress. However, sometimes when we focus on the goal of making our lives run smoothly, we can fail to appreciate the fact that our lives are running efficiently. Therefore, after reaching a goal it is important to celebrate and set new expectations so that one does not go through life on automatic pilot. Exceptional competence is a tremendous present that nature hands to us as we reach our stride in life. We have been performing many of the same tasks for years, and eventually become quite good at them. In much the same way that the loss of self-consciousness frees our brains to perform amazing mental feats, exceptional competence frees our time and attention so we can focus on the important goals in our lives and in our service of the Lord’s work. That allows us to shed the barnacles of doubt, laziness, fear, and sin through faith, prayer, charity, obedience, and love. The lighthouse of God marks the way. The Lord’s beacon light will guide our course to celestial glory. In order to thrive, as we are experiencing the wonder of exceptional competence we must confirm or readjust our priorities and develop a vision, just as we did when we were young. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
The goals of youth are more societally bound, more concrete. As we age, our goals become based on individual rather than cultural need: we have to fashion our visions ourselves. There is a safe harbor. Our Heavenly Father—who knows of our heartache and suffering loves us and wants the best for us. Never doubt this. When we are rejuvenated, we can set about the difficult but fulfilling goal of being the architects of the rest of our lives. There are several clear signals that we are ready to embrace the joys and heartaches of exceptional competence One of the most obvious of these is boredom. The struggle to break out of the cocoon develops the butterfly so it can fly. Without that adversity, the butterfly would never have the strength to achieve its destiny. It would never develop the strength to become something extraordinary. Others are ashamed to admit they find other people, or their own lives, boring. Feeling the weight of too many tasks is another common sign that it is time for you to cease being a beast of burden at work and home. The adversity we experience allows our souls to become like clay in the hands of God. Trials and adversity can be preparatory to becoming born anew. Adversity can strengthen and refine us. As with the butterfly, adversity is needed to build character in people. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
Even when we are called to sail through troubled waters, we need to know the place of adversity in shaping our divine potential. For many of us, maximizing the benefits of exceptional competence does not seem particularly pressing; rarely do the signs of exceptional competence incite deep feelings of angst. However, the slow death we die of boredom or from the lack of a meaningful framework for our own lives is actually more harmful to mature adults overall than the inability or unwillingness to deal with the mental or physical aspects of aging. Depending on how we approach it, the gift of exceptional competence can either be a plateau on which we are stranded or a resting place on the mountain that leads to inner peace. If only we would look beyond our present suffering and see our struggles as a temporary chrysalis. If only we would have the faith and trust in our Heavenly Father to see how, after a little season, then we can emerge from our trails more refined and glorious. Traveling the pathway of exceptional competence means celebrating our achievements in all areas of life. Above all, we must not compare our success and failures to those of others. Doing so will only deflate or inflate one’s view of oneself unnecessarily: we will underestimate the value of what we have done, or we may end up with a false sense of superiority that will squelch our motivation. Each of us develops at our own pace according to our unique needs and interest. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Success is a function of persistence and tenacity and the willingness to work hard for a while to make sense of something most people would give up on after just a brief period. Tenacity is a cultural trait, embedded as deeply as the culture of honor. Many of us cannot abandon our belief in God. Every one of us who believes, they will have to sit with the boss upstairs who will want to know what have we done when we saw injustice. As our life’s new direction becomes clear, we may find that our daily life changes much more than it did on other pathways. It is important to be confident no matter what direction we decide upon, the many skills we have already mastered will be of great help in getting us where we want to go. Accepting our great competence at maturity can make our work and personal lives become desirable and appealing. Knowing we can rely on our established abilities frees us to accomplish amazing feats of creativity, productivity, and what many psychologist call generativity: being able to give away what we know. It also enables one to prepare for the exciting adventures of spiritual development. Our Father in Heaven does not wish us to cower. He does not want us to wallow in our misery. He expects us to square our shoulders, roll up our sleeves, and overcome challenges. That kind of spirit—that blend of faith and hard work—is the spirit we should emulate as we seek to reach a safe harbor in our own lives. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
With the rewards of exceptional competence, we can learn, achieve, and contribute in ways that far surpass what we have been able to accomplish so far. As we overcome adversity, we will become stronger. Then we will be better able to help others—those who are working, in their turn, to find a safe harbor from the storms that rage about them. At times we may be tempted to think the Savior is oblivious to our trials. In fact, the reverse is true; it is we who need to be awakened in our hearts to his teachings. Research shows that occupying a number of highly important roles during adulthood can actually buffer anxiety, enhance self-esteem, and increase our sense of control over our own lives. People who occupy multiple roles, which they deem to be good, shower greater self-esteem and overall psychological well-being than people with fewer or more negatively experienced roles. Furthermore, if you experience a disturbance in ole role, the rewards of other roles can compensate for the loss and lessen the impact of the blow. Use your ingenuity, your strength, your might to resolve your challenges. Do all you can do and then leave the rest to the Lord. If our lives and our faith are centered on God and his gospel, nothing can ever go permanently wrong. We also need to make conscious decisions for future role management so we can experience a productive chemistry of inner and outer imperatives that encourages free-flowing growth. God it at the helm and will shower down blessings upon those who walk in obedience to his commandments. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
If God does not bring it, the Earth will not give it. In the mystical experience the soul is emptied and wholly lost in God, but this is actually not conceived as a union with the Godhead. The soul and God remain distinct in substance, although they are joined by the glue of love. Through man’s love flowing up to God and through the downward movement of God’s grace, the two become united. We can purify ourselves through prayer and be illuminated by the divine mercy, which will allow us to gain a continuing union with God through love. This love is nourished by concentrating upon God, to the exclusion of mutable things. Great things are brought about and burdens are lightened through the efforts of many hands anxiously engaged in a good cause. In the American Midwest, the size of a typical family farm is 450 acres of land. Americans, thousands of years ago, were encouraged and inspired through their cooperative energy to transform the barren desert wasteland into the fertile valleys we have today. We are the beneficiaries of their collective vision and industry. However, things were not always easy for them. Sometimes their tools would break and they would be so low on food that they would have to spend days in bed, packing their bodies tightly in order to stay warm and eat less food. They weaken themselves deliberately. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
Our yearning for moral order makes us want to connect with leaders who actually articulate how we might get there and what we might have to sacrifice to attain the comfort that comes with collective moral purpose. Our choices are always given to us in some sense, and as long as they are going to be given, why not have them given to us by God, by traditions that hold warehouses of stored wisdom, rather than by Gallup polls? Happiness is the object and design 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. We are relentlessly searching for something meaningful and seeking to flee the ravages of globalism and conformist individualism through the reclaiming of righteous and simple ways. In any community of Saints, we all work to serve each other in the best way we know how. Our work has a higher purpose because it is work to bless others and build the Kingdom of God. We all have life events that, when we recall them years later, acquire new and important meaning. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
The revival of interest in basic institutions (such as family and community), and the search for historical roots are all signs of a search for more secure moorings and longer-lasting values in a shifting World. The urge to return to the ole ways, the old tribes and localities, is the urge to protect oneself in an era when everything and everyone is up for grabs. The joiner finds momentary or even lifelong peace and comfort. Safely ensconced, this individual is buffered from society, becomes permanently somebody. We are blessed with a great and noble heritage that offers a pathway to truth that veers dramatically from the so-called ways of the World. We need to remind ourselves about the value of our heritage so we do not underestimate its worth. Stand tall, stop hiding in the corners, and proclaim the treasured teachings of our common heritage, not with a spirit of pride or boasting but with a spirit of confidence and conviction. Something about which many of us are most proud is how our forefathers, through their faith in God and their industry and perseverance, turned places that nobody wanted into beautiful cities. Our Father in Heaven has given all of his children everything they have—their talents, their abilities, their material goods—and has made them stewards over these blessings. Let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God. One that loves not knows not God; for God is love. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
It is our understanding of the principle of love that encourages us to give generously. May the Lord continue to bless us with the desire to love one another. Work is just as important to the success of the Lord’s economic plan as the commandment to love our neighbor. The courage to pursue the main mission in life, which is to love well, and to stay healthy and true to that commitment no matter how difficult it might be. When we risk being ourselves, we can master our greatest interpersonal fears. At the same time, we forge healthier, more rewarding alliances with others. Caring, concern, and a healthy connection to the people in our lives may be the strongest indication that we are well-adjusted, mature adults. In a survey seeking information on what contributes most to psychological well-being during adult years, almost 70 percent of the survey respondents rated their families as the most important thing in their lives at present; slightly more than one-third felt their jobs were most important. When asked what experiences from the past were most beneficial, respondents ranked marriage and family first and second. A loving family is, for most of us, the place where we feel comfortable in disclosing ourselves, where we care enough to exercise compassion during conflict, where we can risk being autonomous in relating, and where we are first called upon to find our sources of personal power. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
It is within our families—whether they be made of blood bonds or never emotional bonds—that we can most easily learn the lessons of interpersonal effectiveness, which carry over into every relationship we undertake. Although confronting our shortcomings in relationships is painful and embarrassing at times, the alternative is worse: people in midlife who do not work at better relationships end up isolated and disenfranchised from themselves. In contrast, people who hone their capacity to be first-class relaters reap unanticipated benefits. Increased ease with others, greater happiness with ourselves, and a deeper understanding of humanity are the bonus prizes of interpersonal effectiveness. The rewards garnered are also the basis for spirituality; connection with others is the first step toward the connection with the greater whole that united us all. Interpersonal effectiveness is also a key component of personal integrity, which is defined in part by how much we respect the integrity, which is defined in part by how much we respect the integrity of others. Most important, as we continue to grow and mature as adults, strong interpersonal skills ensure that we attract warm, caring people as our companions on the journey of life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
God is beyond good and evil. We think of pollution as a chemical poisoning, but the soul can be poisoned through the ear. We might be aware of the value of scents and aromas as well. In the beginning of the sixth century, there were writings that has a wide impact upon medieval mysticism. The negative theology expounded in them was not merely the result of logical difficulties involved in the ascription of ordinary predicates to God but, more importantly, was geared to the expression of the contemplative’s inner experience of a darkness clearer than light. Thus the highest state of Christian blessedness was increasingly identified with contemplation, and mysticism became the pattern after which eternal life was conceived. The fall of Adam brought about a rupture in the cosmos; the Shekinah, or Divine Presence, became exiled from the En-Sof (which is understood as God prior to his self-manifestation in the production of any spiritual realm and can also be known as the Endless One, unending, infinity). No longer does the Presence pervade the whole World; it appears intermittently here and there—for instance, in ancient Israel—and has continued to be especially associated with some people. The aim should be to bring about a reunion of the En-Sof with the Shekinah (which is also known as the Earth and represents the oral law and the oral law is the source of the spirit of every living being). #RandolphHarris 1 of 10
Since the human soul contains some of the Sefiroth, the individual experience of such a reunion will have its cosmic effects and help to restore Universal harmony. Consequently, the mystical life was given a dramatic and central place in the operations of the Universe. Reincarnation is supposed to give humans ever fresh chances of living the pure life and is supposed to provide a framework for the punishment of those who had transgressed because too much fertilizer, or the right amount applied at the wrong time, could be as bad as too little. Adam is a Universal being who before the Fall embraced the Universe, then in an ideal state. With his fall, the material World was created, and the light of his divine nature was fragmented into the parks that illuminate the myriads of living souls. In the final consummation, all will be reunited. Asceticism and the practice of kavannah—concentrated devotion in all one’s acts—were the means of purifying the soul. Social conditions may have helped the growth of such doctrines, for the emphasis on meekness, love, and a quiet interior life were well adapted to the unhappy outer circumstances of the people, and Messianic hope gave the contemplative cosmic role. Spiritual leaders stress being righteous because it is thought to be the best way to channel God. Salvation can be attained through prayer and pious acts. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10
Many say God speaks in numbers. It is important to teach human beings to store digits in a memory loop that runs longer than two seconds. It is good to teach children in school to memorize seven numbers at a time and then repeat those numbers to increase the numerical memory capacity loop. By teaching young children to play games with numbers, by age five they can be ahead of their peers by a year in their most fundamental math skills. This will allow them to perform addition more easily. Also, the attitude one takes towards math makes a huge difference. Instead of being a rote learning thing, there is a pattern one can figure out. There is an expectation that it is sensible. For fractions, instead of saying three-fifths, it might be better understood if we say out of five parts take three. That is telling you conceptually what a fraction is. It is differentiating the denominator and the numerator. This will take away the bafflement and allow a child to hold more numbers in their heads and do calculations faster because the way a fraction actually is will be expressed in a language that corresponds exactly to what is being asked. And it may make math more enjoyable, which will may students try a little harder and take more math calluses and be more willing to do their homework in kind of a virtuous circle. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10
When you live in a community where everybody knows everybody, invisibility is banished. In the larger anonymous society of being cities and suburbs, one has to know something to make an active effort. One has to win, know how to assert oneself in the competition for limited resources—and not only once, but day after day. With the disappearance of traditional society and its preconditions and in the absence of the preordained, unquestioned, often enforced ties of earlier times, people are constantly forced to articulate their individuality and existence as a way to manufacture bonds and connections for networking and notoriety. The pressure of needing to constantly justify and give notice of one’s existence is ameliorated by living in (comparatively) closed society. Some researcher believe that the intrinsic nature of the child, some inborn predilection to attach or separate from others, is more important than the role played by the primary caretaker in this personality-defining scenario. Being able to let go of Mom and tolerate the anxiety of doing so puts infants in an entirely new relationship alignment, not only with their mothers, but with everyone else who matters to them. There is a close connection between the ability to feel and tolerate this anxiety and the ability to enter mutually gratifying relationships. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10
Coping with separation anxiety means giving away some of our power over the valued other, some of our need to be in charge, and some of our insistence on gratifying our own wishes. In letting go of our basic selfish motives, we learn the rudiment of altruistic caring and relating. Cultivation of the spiritual life, whereby a foretaste of the beatitude of the blessed in Heaven can be gained. Thus the ultimate destiny of human beings is seen in contemplative terms, and it is thought possible to anticipate tis destiny by a regulated life withdrawn from the World. Those who gravitate toward over connectedness, seek undue amounts of reassurance or control in relationships, and may act domineering—or overprocess their feelings and opinions—in an effort to avoid the painful experience of rejection or abandonment. They seem to think that if others just understood their point of view, no separation would have to occur. However, research and practical observation confirms that overusing detachment in relating is a power, but dysfunctional attempt to quell anxiety of a different form. Complete withdrawal is a strong indication that the individual is so afraid of being engulfed by the other person’s point of view or emotional state that running away appears to be the only solution. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10
Distancing is a last-ditch effort to maintain sense of self. Individuals who make this type of interpersonal mistake report having been cared for by clingy, overly dependent adults while in their formative years, and having learned to temporarily turn off their attachment to, and concern for, their extremely needful associates. Matthew never felt that he had a life of his own. He always felt people needed him to experience everything that the could not have for themselves, so he always felt the pressure to be out there in the World living life for them. However, at the same time, he was always getting the message never to leave them. Needless to say, Matthew lacked any opportunity to observe a close loving relationship between two adults. He described feeling suffocated at times by people’s emotional need. His response was, overtime, to pull back each time he started to get close to a potential partner. In this way, he avoided the possibility of anyone needing him, threatening to suffocate him, or trying to take over his life. His ambivalence for each new partner, enacted by always finding flaws that allowed him to escape, was a continuing act of loyalty and submission to the people of his past. By never committing to a relationship, Matthew never left the people who needed him behind for someone else. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10
It is important to be willing to risk being rejected or engulfed, whichever is more frightening to you. When you risk experiencing the pain that your coping method was designed to avoid, you eliminate you need to use it. In simple terms, if you can tolerate being rejected, you will not have to maintain attachments at all costs, and if you can handle being engulfed, you need not withdraw from situations in order to survive them intact. Only after you have come to terms with the possibility of abandonment or obliteration can you be truly assertive in voicing your true thoughts and emotions. Though it might appear that this problem, which is essentially emotional in nature, can be solved with private inner work, the dysfunction was born in the interpersonal crucible, and it is there that it must be resolved. What you gain from tolerating the anxiety of being rejected, relinquishing your overreliance on attachment, and becoming more separate or distant when the situation warrants is a greater sense of autonomy and the ability to survive real or potential rejections; less tolerance for being abused by others; a willingness to stand up for your own needs; and a greater sense of relationship balance, marked by increased sensitivity to the attachment-separation needs of others. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10
Some people enjoy not just the quiet of the giant cedars and many hidden beaches in the country living because they hunger for the old lifestyle, and this is as close as they can get to the instant recognizability of yesteryear’s small town. The clock is turned back. The nobody can be somebody just by existing. The roles—town drunk, town loon, town rabble-rouser, town gossip, town genius, town beauty queen, or the town’s most eligible bachelor—provide identities that would otherwise have to be carefully maintained and retooled and projected. Perhaps this is why small towns always seem so sleepy and nonchalant. They are protected from the perpetual necessity of narrative reinvention. Many of us seek, either consciously or unconsciously, to replicate this idea of the small town. We yearn for the collective intimacy of the tribe and the crew, yet grove on the anonymity and solitude cyberspace. Conversely, many people do not wish to totally abandon the city. Some of us are half in the rural sleepy island World and, at least mentally, half in the hyperactive city mindset. On the island, with its many highly intelligent, World-weary, conservative-minded residents, we get the best of both Worlds: small town recognition without small-town provincialism. Downshifting people with an underlying longing for a tradition that will not limit their individuality embody an increasingly common mindset. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10
Some people are separated from the crowd who are unhappy with their lives because some individuals actually act on their longings of the greater, popular-infused society while being effortlessly recognized as a member of a tiny and exclusive community. Most people are unable to relocate out of the influence of the fast paced and largely anonymous urban centers. As a result, many try to capture the sense of downshifting in other ways. The trend reveals itself in movements like Slow Food—and international group that preaches slow cooking, traditional ingredients and customs, gardening, and nostalgia for a past of villages and farms and ancestral banquets. They prefer the sound of brooms and a rake to the loud, polluting motors of the leaf blowers that wake them up every single day, even on sleep-in Saturday. These people want to save indigenous crops from the single-crop focus of modern agribusiness, and develop more local farms and family operations before all of the land is selfishly developed. They talk about a fund to help new farmers set up their operations while the seniors can share enough knowledge of the old ways to replicate the successful farming techniques of a time before fertilizer and pesticide. There is a nostalgic element to having at least one plantation style farm to represent the community. #RandolpHarris 9 of 10
It is easy to overlook the obvious, persistent indications of soul, in this case the fantasies and longing for harmony, where the blue ride yawns its greatness. Working class, middle class, and wealthy people from the city are desperately casting about for an identity that comes close to the values of a mom-and-pop business of a simpler time and this mirrors society’s desire for real substance and meaning in a technology-driven chimera. Because we hunger for the old lifestyle, we fake it for a while. What do you think country-western music and rhythm and blues is all about? Dolly Parton, Aaliyah, Anita Baker, Janet Jackson, Garth Brooks, Boyz II Men, the Marvin Gaye. You hear them everywhere, on every channel in the Panhandle, because we need it now more than ever—to convince ourselves that we are still cowboys and cowgirls. Lord, accept us in penitence. Lord, leave us not. Lord, led us not into temptation. God, grant us good thoughts. God, grant us tears and remembrance of death and compunction. Lord, grant us the thought of confessing our sins. God, grant us humility, chastity, and obedience. Lord, grant us to love thee in our hearts. God, grant us to love thee with all our mind and soul, and always to do thy will. Lord, protect us from certain people, and passions, from every other harmful thing. Lord, thou know thou actest as thou wilt; may they will be also in me, a sinner, for blessed at thou forever. Amen. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10
Our wishes and dreams fare so much better when we have a little courage—courage to stand up for our beliefs, courage to face the unknown, courage to be successful. In our confusing, constantly shifting age, more and more of us long for the traditions of a supposedly simpler time. Though we many not join fundamentalist religions, trade in our cars for horses and buggies, or set off to foreign lands, we cannot help but occasionally think that times were better when our values and our lifestyles were protected by restrictive codes governing behavior. Being bridled, or yielding obediently to restraint, is necessary for our personal growth and progression. There was a prison program where wild horses were being tamed by people who were serving time in prison. As the inmates formed friendships with the horses, they learned or reaffirmed patience, controlling tempers, respect for others, and the value of working within a system. As they watched the horses learn to be obedient to their commands and guidance, the inmates realized how they could have avoided terrible mistakes that had put them in prison. Obedience to righteous principles and learning who is trustworthy would have offered the inmates freedom from social infirmary, shame, degradation, and feelings of guilt and regret. Some people took the view—if you want to treat us differently, we will act differently. However, like the horses, the people serving time can still learn, progress, and achieve. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
When you wish, dream, and so, a successful outcome is directly related to your willingness to take a risk. We hear many persuasive voices demanding freedom from restrictions, particularly from moral restraints. However, we learn from the history of the Earth that any successful society has had boundaries. There is an unsettling yearning for the past simplicity many experience when confronted by the vagaries and complexities of the new conformity. Here, the small town looms large as the bastion of a simpler, better time when values were shared and people worked together to uphold the sanctity of family and community. In the Heavenly small town, no one was out of place, no one was taking Prozac, everyone had a role and a purpose. The ideal town provided a dream like relief from freedom through effortless recognition. It is hardly surprising that the simple life of the small town looms so large in our imagination. Currently, in our free society, it seems to have become daunting. People are actually begging the government to take away their rights and do away with laws. They want the government to dictate every aspect of their lives because the more freedom we have, the more troublesome and threatening it seems. People today are not so much concerned with the need to belong to a community as with the liberation from the compulsion of constantly having to choose and decide. Where freedom becomes a cage, many chose the freedom of a cage. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The meaning of the word liberty is difficult to circumscribe. The World has never had a good definition of the term. We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not mean the same thing. With some, the word liberty may mean for each person to do as he or she pleases with oneself and the product of one’s labor. While with others liberty may mean for some people to do as the please with other people and the product of other people’s labor. Yet, the sweets of liberty about which we usually speak may be classified as political independence, economic freedom, and free agency. We should also strive for a freedom of the soul. “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 121.45. One who enjoys such liberty is free indeed. One is possessed of perfect liberty. Some people are seeking an escape from a society that compels loneliness by placing the highest values on individual achievement. They seek to be born again into yesterday, stripped of their fears and uncertainties, protected from the ravages and confusions of the shape-shifting present. We get so tired of having the same problems over and over that we finally admit there may be other ways of solving the problems. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Until we mature, most of us remain entrenched in our own behavior patterns, likely, as the saying goes, to try harder instead of smarter. In fact, studies have shown that adult humans are the only creatures that will stick to a problem-solving technique that has lost its effectiveness. In contrast, countless animal-conditioning experiments with chickens and elephants show that after a certain number of attempts to jump a barrier, escape confinement, even avoid a painful electrical shock, the animals will give up trying. We humans do get credit for persistence, if not for hardheadedness. Our problem is that we are going about it wrong. Our animal friends, on the other hand, are often completely incapacitated by failure. If the experimenter removes the barrier, boundaries, or electrical field, for example, animals still make no effort to achieve their original goal, even though goal attainment is now possible. Waiting for circumstances to change, however, is not usually a good option for humans seeking conflict resolution. It is not likely that some “experimenter” will magically render our previously unsuccessful communication efforts suddenly effective. Think of it as buying the lottery tickets of human interaction; it is possible, but highly unlikely, that you will resolve anything without changing your approach. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Frankly, if we do not take a fresh look at communications problems as we mature, there is a good chance we never will: although senior adults can learn new communications skills, the prognosis for achieving great strides in interpersonal effectiveness diminishes significantly after a certain age. Researcher who study relationship trends among older adults often cite age-related declines in physical ability, which may hinder motivation, as well as deeply ingrained communication habits, as the major deterrents to improving relationships in later stages of adulthood. Many people tend to adopt a relating style that worked for them as children, and stay with it forever. Naturally, this creates a strong desire to escape the pressures of constantly creating individuality. The trend whereby people abandon high stress lifestyles in favor of lives centered on family and community provides a sense of enlightenment, freedom, maturity, and individuality. Downshifting is happening because millions of Americans are recognizing that, in fact, their lives are no longer in sync with their values. The money and the consumption-identity line has started to seem meaningless. In wake of the dot-com bubble burst, many people who would have been millionaires from their experience in computer science technology sought simpler lives by moving to a quiet town, opening a business and taking on new careers is an example of downshifting. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Inspired by great food and New York Culture, one post-dot-com Columbia University MBA holder decided to open a hot-dog stand in Brooklyn, New York USA. The idea was created to give a classic New York staple the quality and love it deserves. Using fresh ingredients, organic meats, freshly baked buns, and fancy mustards to produce a hot dog people could feel good about eating. Similarly, Assaf Tarnopolsky, a Wharton Business School graduate who took his post-dot-com career in the direction of crepes initially sweated and encountered some setbacks that were part of any start up, but he and his partner always reminded themselves that they have a great concept and an incredible product. And that without taking risks, success would be out of reach instead of around the corner. They have since expanded and are now known as the “West Coast Crepe King.” Still risk can produce so much anxiety that you begin to wonder why you are pursuing a passion in the first place. Anxiety is a natural, deeply felt response to being emotionally or physically separated from things or people we have learned to count on. You will not always be able to explain your courage—to others or to yourself. And after overcoming a significant trial, someone might ask you, “How on Earth did you accomplish that?” You might not know yourself, but deep inside you know it was by the grace of God. God did not bring you this far to let you go. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Because you are an adult, sometimes it is important to be meticulous. Instead of trying to do too much at once, think of the strides you will make by sampling a little courage one until you get comfortable because when you deny your dreams a voice, you quell any hope for turning what you want into what is yours. Once you decide that your wishes and dreams should come out to play, you are likely to make some discoveries. Some will be stunning, others puzzling, but all will intrigue. Some people take time off from work after they realize they are work obsessed city types who have become battered down by stress and obligation and are so focused on the money they make that it starts to deteriorate their bodies. Deblekha Guin took a temporary time out on a small island. She bought a nice house with cathedral ceilings. She knew moving to a small rural community was the smartest thing she had ever done because she had the opportunity to articulate what she felt and how she felt. Deblekha feel a sense of belonging in this community. She felt something and felt a part of something. It was the type of place if you had a cold someone would take care of you and everyone blended in. There is a close connection between the ability to feel and tolerate anxiety and the ability to enter mutually gratifying relationships. Pour out your soul in thanksgiving. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
When people are talking to people, it is important that one darn sure understands what is going on. Cultural legacies matter—they are powerful and pervasive and they persist, long after their original usefulness has passed. However, do not assume that legacies are an indelible part of who we are. “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but only that which is good and edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers,” reports Ephesians 4.29. If we are honest about where we come from and are willing to confront those aspects of our heritage that do not suit the professional World, we can change. We can and should participate in continuing civil dialogue, especially when we view the World from differing perspectives. When we understand what it really means to be a good person—when we understand how much culture and history and the World outside of the individual matter to professional success—then we do not have to throw up our hands in despair at other people when they make mistakes. We have a way to make success out of the unsuccessful. “A soft answer turns away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger,” reports Proverbs 15.1. Although it is important to be frank about a subject we would all too often rather ignore, a soft answer consists of a reasoned response—disciplined words from a humble heart. Words that may be firm in information can be soft in spirit. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Why are we so squeamish? Why is the fact that each of us comes from a culture with its own distinctive mix of strength and weaknesses, tendencies and predispositions, so difficult to acknowledge? Who we are cannot be separated from where we are from—and when we ignore that fact, accidents happen. You can imagine how frustrating it can be when people are all thinking furiously, trying to square their assumptions about a person or situation they know nothing about. There exists today a great need for people to cultivate respect for each other across wide distances of belief and behavior and across deep canyons of conflicting agendas. It is impossible to know all that informs our minds and hearts or even to fully understand the context for the trials and choices we each face. Even intelligent individuals have trouble with the group mentality trap. In order to avoid the hazards of hardheadedness and self-interest in a group setting where the issues at hand may appear to be impossible to solve, we need to understand a genuine dialogue that will free individuals to do their best thinking. When each person feels that his or her opinions and emotions are taken seriously, the intelligence of a group or community can move beyond the intelligence quotient of any of the individuals, into the collective genius. Learning to relate to the person behind the opinions by shifting to a more beneficial point of view is the most effective way of ending the conflict. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
When a person is trying to express to you what is going on, it is never a good idea to compare and contrast their situation with someone you think who has a more difficult time. Whatever the person talking to you is going through has nothing to do with comparing their situation to someone else’s. They are trying to explain what is going on with them and get some kind of empathy or advice. Sometimes we need to fully own the limits of our own imperfections and rough edges in communicating with others, and practice with tender regard for another’s experience what we are thinking. Hearing someone who has it harder does not and should not make us feel better. It would be like a struggling adult talking about their situation and someone saying, “Well, when your father was twenty-one he has a successful career, a house in the hills, and a brand-new car.” And it is like, that is nice, but there may be something someone is trying to express about their situation that has nothing to do with a comparison. They may be looking for help on how to deal with something they think is personal. Rising above our own feelings requires an unselfish generosity, the kind of generosity that contributes to happiness. Everyone has a different lifestyle and other people’s failures of successes have nothing to do with one’s situation. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
It is sometimes like because people, even if they are older, get together in groups and because they have had a hard life, they want to take it out on someone who was rising above the doom and gloom and mistakes others made with their life. And when they finally bring that person down and that person is suffering, they want that individual to know that they have had a hard life and why should you have it any different. It is like seeing you suffer makes them feel better, and they want to blame you for their problems. Typically as we age, empathy for another person’s perspective comes easier than it does during earlier periods, but not always for some. Research on healthy adult development reveals that one key characteristic of maturity is the increased capacity to respect and even embrace another person’s point of view. Vast improvements in relationships are made when we can move beyond our rigid ideas and attempt to encounter others as people, not positions. Perhaps most exciting are the community—even global—implications of simply getting to know each other before we attempt to “solve” problems. “For the Lord sees not as people see; people look at the outside appearance, but God look at the heart,” reports 1 Samuel 16.7. It does not matter who is more right. What matters is listening to each other an understanding the other’s perspective. The willingness to see through each other’s eyes will transform corrupt communication in ministering grace. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Western communication has what linguists call a transmitter orientation—that is, it is considered the responsibility of the speaker to communicate ideas clearly and unambiguously. However, there is something beautiful in the subtlety of the exchange in Eastern culture, in the attention that each party must pay to the motivations and desires of the other. It is civilized, in the truest sense of that word: it does not permit insensitivity or insensitivity or indifference. However, high-power distance communication works only when the listener is capable of paying close attention, and it only works if the two parties in a conversation have the luxury of time, in order to unwind each other’s meanings. It does not work in high finance when time is an issue and people are exhausted and trying to get a situation taken care of before a deadline. Speaking through grace and compassionate language when the cultivated gift of the Holy Ghost pierces our hearts with empathy for the feelings and context of others. It enables us to transform hazardous situations into holy places. God looks upon our hearts and cares what we are thinking. It is also important to understand that sometimes people have had discussions in the past, and they only reason they may revisit them is because some third-party steps in with their opinions. So people who have had a discussion in the past understand what the other is saying and does not have to go into much detail. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
And, frankly, sometimes people just need to mind their own business and keep their opinions to themselves, especially if you start trying to power force in a situation that has nothing to do with you and there is clear evidence that your influence has made the situation much worse. No one asked for your opinion, no one asked for your help and if you had followed the law all the pain and suffer and decades of corrective action and millions of dollars would not have been spent trying to correct a problem you created by trying to force your influence over a situation that was under control. People are not here to have their faith questioned and challenged. We are here to remind ourselves that we are not alone, to reaffirm centuries-old traditions with like-minded souls from around the World. We are not brainwashed, we are not being forced, we are all confirmed, we are doing this on our own. The Church does not make mistakes. We are all sinners, we are not perfect, we cannot expect anyone to be perfect like God, but it is important to show respect and not try to force your situations or ways onto others, especially when they can have fatal and lifelong impacts. Sometimes when people are watching you, they cannot help but feel jealous because you believe in something; it is more than they can say. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
When you follow a leader, a code, a God, and it give your life meaning not by seeking to attain control of someone else’s narrative and reshaping, but through the opposite: by relinquishing it; we shall go one pursuing the path which the Lord has marked out before us. We have the right to influence who gets elected, what gets taught in schools, what gets sold in stores, and what rights we have in order to make decisions about our own bodies in lives. You cannot own a person and try to control their lives by using political forces. You cannot assume you know more than a person does about their products when you are not an expect. America is a law of lands and we have a capitalistic system because other systems can be very dangerous and deadly, as they do not respect human lives nor freedom of choice. America used to be a different World, where slavery was legal and everyone can see how deadly and dangerous it is when people do not have the freedom to make choices about their own lives, bodies, health and occupations. “Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand; of both in Heaven and in the Earth, and under the Earth; things which must shortly come to pass; thing which are at home; things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations,” reports Doctrines and Covenants 88.78-80. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
The moral sense is an influencing motive in our pursuit of virtue and our avoidance of vicious behavior, and it plays a part in our bestowal of praise and blame. In the twenty-first century, many people seem to be on a quest for individuality that itself is more a product of the power relations of an essentially conformist and elaborately micromanaged society than an authentic expression of true human need. This is our World: focus groups, elaborate surveillance, and single televised entertainment events beamed simultaneously into billions of homes, much like the historical wedding of Prince Harry and Princess Meghan Markle. Every aspect of our life is watched over, chronicled, legislated, recorded, and turned into a massive database on the likes, needs, habits, desires, and activities of the modern human. How did we get ourselves into this paradoxical state? Because someone wanted to psychologically control large groups of people. The masses were also characterized as an intrinsically dangerous, unpredictable, and irrational rabble. And because of and despite their volatility, crowds could be manipulated. Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds, they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, shape. Gustave Le Bon, the father of mass psychology and patron saint of propaganda, had a clarion call that would come to affect the future billions: Dumb it down! #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
It has been observed in criminology that most criminals are just copy cats lacking innovation. Gabriel Tarde, a criminologist, believed society to be a group of beings who are apt to imitate one another. The masses are supposedly sleepwalking through life, noting that society is imitation and imitation is a kind of somnambulism. The French media critics like Legrand du Saulle and Despine, warned against the moral contagion in which the press publicizes crimes and sensational stories that are immediately imitated. Hysteria is an emotional disturbance that manifests in a variety of physical symptoms, such as blindness, anesthesia, or paralysis. These symptoms are produced by the subconscious functions that are dissociated from normal awareness. People essentially are susceptible to sentiment—they will copy whatever they are shown are told. Conformity is the distinctive quality of the mass human. They conform because they are suggestible. Once suggestible, people submit to idea and emotions of which they were unaware, rising up from the depths of their psyche. Half asleep, some individuals plunge into the mysterious World of dreams, which they take for reality. These people copy automatically, obey somnabulistically, and together with the rest, flows with the human tide. They must be withdrawn from the resistance of the censorship. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
The crowd is a beat that wants only to be fed—and will eat anything—and that is why it is so easy to manipulate mass culture. Leaders and tycoons of industry have also been instructed to ignore what the people in the crowd might actually want by pronouncing that crowds are by nature crazy and hysterical. It followed that the crowd was open to manipulation for the crowd’s own good. The crowd, faceless and sometimes dangerous, must be picked apart, studied, made to obey. This is something that is seen particularly in California, which has a lack of affordable housing, high energy rates, and extremely expensive gas, people are not protesting for rent control, affordable housing, or a living wage. Instead, they are fighting to add more people to the situation who are not Americans and unlawfully entered the country. The most pressing issue in California, according to many democratic leaders and their followers is making illegal immigration legal, while legal Americans struggle to get by. Notice how the morning papers mornings news shows set the agenda for the day’s conversation so the sheep can be sheared even as they gaze. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
However, we have a challenge to rise above the plateaus we have been on. Life was purposefully designed to place us in circumstances where we can be individually tested and where, by the exercise of the agency God has given us, we can determine what our future possibilities will be. “We are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient to humans. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all humans, or to choose captivity and death,” reports 2 Nephi 2.27. The more frustrated you become; failing to find common ground usually results in the use of force—crying, yelling, stomping, physical battle. However, crying or aggression rarely solves the problem and usually escalates tension. “We have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for ourselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law according to the commandments which God has given,” reports 2 Nephi 2.26. Every person many act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency given unto him or her, that every people may be accountable. When we understand what right and wrong are, we are in a position to exercise our freedom in making choices. In so doing, we must stand accountable for our decisions, and we cannot escape the inevitable consequences of these choices. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
Physicists have found that by changing their expectations of the manner in which particles and waves will move they can actually cause these subatomic events to shift course. In other words, not even the laws of nature are immune to the power of perception. (Incidentally, these experiments are further support of the importance of visualization in achieving what you want.) By our very endowment as children of an Eternal Father, we have had implanted within our souls the urgency to be free. If perception is so powerful that it can change energy patterns, it is not something you want to ignore. It is natural for us to want to be accountable for our own fates, because there is a whispering within us confirming that this accountability is absolutely essential to the attainment of our eternal destiny. The existence of laws, regulations, and procedures has never been sufficient to compel people to obey. Productive obedience comes through the exercise of free will. Conflict not only enables us to improve the situation at hand, it also provides learning opportunities that makes us better people. All that it usually requires to improve any relationship is for one of the parties to shift into a more conciliatory, compassionate, and curious view of other people. When one individual in a conflict is able to see the opponent as a worthwhile person with worthwhile opinions, resolution almost always occurs. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
Learning to respect one’s adversary is crucial to conflict resolution. The first step toward negotiation is to separate the person from the problem. In other words, do not confuse how you feel about the person (or the person’s behavior) with how you view the issue. Conflict resolution is always more likely when you can be generous enough to extend your opponent the recognition and respect that the person seeks from you. (You should only forgo this approach is your adversary is operating out of evil motives. And while evil motives do exists, they are much less frequently a factor then we presume.) Since we tend not to respect the opinions of people whom we consider unlikable, we need to learn to view our opponent not as unattractive, unpleasant person, but as an individual who possesses a combination of traits—some of which cause us to react optimistically, some negatively, some neutrally. It is only when we can see our opponents as real, multidimensional people that we can hope to build the other critical ingredient of conflict resolution: trust. Respectful listening builds trust, and when we trust people, we feel comfortable negotiating with them. The more you can learn about your opponent, the better able you will be to bring respect and trust to the situation. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
From the Renaissance and Enlightenment emerges this idea of human rights, of a humankind in which each person deserves to be free and uplifted. The Enlightenment ideal of individual human dignity, which is now enshrined in society gives life to essential freedoms. However, if we allow ourselves to accept dependency and regulation and cease valuing independence and self-accountability, then we are vulnerable to the forces that destroy freedom. Then the one thing we no longer own, we cannot possess, it will not be able to be charged on MasterCard and protected through hiring private security, are our values, thoughts, and integrity. These are assets compromised and invaded by the paradoxical creation of a herd-like individuality. If righteousness is judged primarily by the degree to which one responds to programmed activity, then a condition develops within which opportunities for progress decline. The resulting tragedy affects the mortal potential of human beings and has a profound effect on our eternal possibilities as well. Programmed behavior cannot produce the level of spiritual development required to qualify one for eternal life. A necessary range of freedom and self-determination is essential to one’s spiritual development. With an understanding of correct principles and intrinsic desire to apply them, one must be motivated within oneself to do many good things of one own free will; for, as the revelation says, the power is in one wherein that individual in an agent unto oneself. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Lord, Heavenly King, comforter, spirit of truth, have compassion and mercy on us, and pardon our unworthiness, and forgive us all the sins that we committed today, and not only humanly but even worse than a beast—our sins, known and unknown, from our youth and from evil suggestions, and from our brazenness, and from boredom. If we have sworn by your name or blasphemed it in in thought, blamed or reproached anyone, or in our anger have detracted or slandered anyone, or grieved anyone, or if we have got angry about anything, or have told a lie, if we have slept unnecessarily, or if a beggar has come to us and we despised or neglected him or her, or if we have troubled our people or quarreled with them, or if we have condemned anyone, or have boasted, or have been proud, or lost our temper with anyone, or if when standing in our prayer our minds have been distracted by the glamour of this World, of if we have had depraved thoughts or have overeaten, or have drunk excessively, or have laughed frivolously, or have thought evil, or have seen the attraction of someone and been wounded by it in our heart, or said indecent things, or made of our people’s sin when our own faults are countless, or been neglectful of prayer, or have done some other wrong that we cannot remember—for we have done all this and much more—have mercy, Lord and Creator, on us, your children. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
Dear God, please absolve and forgive and deliver us in your goodness and love for human beings, so that, lustful, sinful and wretched as we are, we may lie down and seep and rest in peace. And we shall worship, praise, and glorify your most honourable name. Lord, deprive us not of your Heavenly joys. God, deliver us from eternal torments. Lord, if we have sinned in mind or thought, in word or deed, forgive us. God, deliver us from all ignorance, forgetfulness, cowardice and stony insensibility. God, deliver us from ever temptation. Lord, enlighten our hearts, which evil desire have darkened. God, we being human have sinned, but you being the generous God, have mercy on us, knowing the sickness of our souls. Lord, please send your grace to our help, that we may glorify your name. God, write our names in the book of life, and grant us a good end. God, even though we may not have done anything good in your sight, yet grants us by your grace to make a good start. Lord, sprinkle into our hearts the dew of your grace. Lord of Heaven and Earth remember us and accept us. A careful balance must be maintained between which is ordered for the welfare of the group and that which is reserved for the conscience and incentive of the individual. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Randolph Harris II International Institute 