http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/pride-and-the-priesthood?lang=eng
It is probably obvious that the goal of the lesson was to not be prideful and I realized that not being prideful is a pretty good idea because it actually makes you happier. Doing that, however, is pretty challenging and I thought I would illustrate why with this little diagram:
The problem is that balancing ourselves on that point of humility is almost impossible. On one side of the hill, we have the envy. This is where short people like me live. On the other side we have the "I'm better than you" type of pride. That is where the tall people live. It is really difficult because there are constantly things pushing us from one side to the other. That is unless we are really pitiful or really awesome and then we just camp out on one side.
Now, don't fear because I thought of a solution to the problem. Well, OK, the person who gave the talk actually thought of the solution but I thought of an analogy that helped me understand the solution. Think of balancing a stick on your finger. Have you ever tried that? If you have, you might know that if you look down and concentrate on where your finger is, you can't balance the stick. However, if you simply focus on the top of the stick, you'll find that you are much better able to balance the stick. I compare this to concentrating too much on ourselves. If we TRY to be humble by focusing on ourselves, then we can almost never do it. However, if we focus outside ourselves (specifically, if we focus on helping other people) then actual humility is within our grasp. This is like looking at the top of the stick (the furthest point away from ourselves) instead of our finger. Anyway, that is it. Now, if I can just start doing better at doing good stuff for other people...
5 comments:
I just want you to know that my husband and I have studied and discussed your post in depth, along with the conference talk you included. Seeing your graph really helps put it in perspective for us. Thank you very much!
I think I spend way to much time on the wrong side of the equation I might use this for my lesson sunday.
Excellent analogy. I can use this one tomorrow when I meet with the young men. I can even use this one at work. Thanks Jayson!
I brought in a long stick and had a volunteer try to balance it by just looking at his finger and then had him balance it by looking at the top of the stick. It worked pretty well in the class and illustrated the point. I honestly felt like it was a bit of inspiration that I thought I ought to share since it made so much sense to me. I thought this was one of the most profound talks I had ever heard so I thought I was lucky to get to teach it in the class. Of course, I think it was profound to me purely because I have had issues with both sides of the hill.
I really like the analogy of the where your focus is - the further away from you the better the balance, the happier your are becoming as you better achieve the task of balancing the stick.
However, are not both Envy (I resent you and therefore can not learn from you) and Pride (I'm better than you and therefore I can't learn from you, both negative opposites from Humility, as well as from each other?
We have to 1st judge others in order to be able to compare ourselves to them to then resent or take pride, so the clue to better humility and happiness is not to judge others (also a commandment), not to compare ourselves to others. Related commandments that will also "set us free" include "Do not Covet" (what I want) and "Love one another" - which relates directly to what you say about focusing away from ourselves!
So I see a set of cross-roads or set of intersections along our path to humility and charity (one way to view "meek and lowly"). To make progress along my travel to have more humility and charity, I can't turn left to envy or right to pride, or even backwards (because not forgiving will delay or block my progress as well), I have to focus/look away from myself and look forwards/towards serving others.
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