Honest, Simple, Solid, True

From a talk by Terry Warner, BYU Professor of philosophy:

"Perfect honesty and simplicity consists not in devoting attention to oneself, even when one's aims are lofty, but in forgetting oneself and responding to others in love, according to their needs. We are not oysters or abalones, existing in shells--even though that is how we may feel when we become self-involved. We are members one of another, connected to each other, and especially to God, by spiritual sensitivities and obligations profound as eternity. And just for that reason, we become most ourselves when we are most true to God and to one another. We become most right with ourselves when we are most right with them."

"Look upon interruption and frustration and insubordination and disrespect and scorn and even abuse--all the treatment from others that we must renounce for ourselves--as opportunities for choosing good over evil. Do not love and do good only to those who will reciprocate, the Savior taught; it takes no particular righteousness to do that (see Luke 6:32­33). Listen attentively to the teacher whose lectures may be a little dry. Read with particular care the papers of students who struggle to write. Befriend the one who feels different, lost, or lonely. Take seriously the advice of parents who have trouble following that advice themselves. Invite to dinner those who lack the graciousness or the means to invite you back. Even "love your enemies, do good to them which hate you" (Luke 6:27). Like the Father, let your warming sun and nourishing rain fall on the just and unjust alike. Jesus intimated that this kind of love is who we really are--the very perfection, completeness, and fullness we came here to attain (see Matthew 5:45­48). And anything less--judging others and withholding our favor from them--capitulates to Satan. After all, it is with us as it was with the Redeemer: Satan does not need to overpower us in order to win the war. He only needs to get us to adopt his way of fighting it."

"Where good and evil are concerned, there's no such thing as being sidelined or taking time out. Everything we do, everything we say, everything we think and feel makes a difference, especially considering the season of war in which we live. When war is being waged, wasting time becomes malingering."

"People respond more energetically, think more clearly, work more joyfully, and build more wisely when they put one another ahead of self; when they welcome the interruption brought on by another person's need; when they do their work in ways that enhance each other's work; when they forget about getting credit; when they renounce in their hearts all sense of belonging to an elite company, even a company of the brightest or best trained or the most doctrinally pure; when they reach out to and embrace those who are violating all these principles."

Are you green and growing or ripe and rotting?
--Ray Kroc

More from The Anatomy of Peace

Recovering Inner Clarity and Peace

1. Look for the signs of blaming, justifying, and horriblizing in your life.
2. Find a memory of a relationship, an activity, a place, that feels at peace and has no conflict attached to it.
3. Ponder the problem situation you are having anew by asking questions:
... What are this person's challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
... How am I adding to these challenges, trials, burdens, and pains?
... In what other ways have I neglected or mistreated this person or group?
... In what ways are my justifications obscuring the truth about others and interfering with potential solutions?
... What am I feeling I should do for this person? What could I do to help?
4. Act upon what I have discovered -- Do what I am feeling I should do.
... Correct - rarely
... Teach and communicate
... Listen and learn
... Build the relationship
... Get out of the way and to a heart that is at peace

from The Anatomy of Peace

Seeing an equal person as an inferior object is an act of violence. It hurts as much as a punch to the face. In fact, in many ways it hurts more. Bruises heal more quickly than emotional scars do.

Generally speaking, we respond to others' way of being toward us rather than to their behavior. [People] respond more to how we're regarding them than they do to our particular words or actions.

When I betray myself by not acting on my good desires, others' faults become immediately inflated in my heart and mind. I begin to 'horribilize' them. A needy man on the street suddenly represents a threat to my very peace and freedom.

Although nothing I can do in the present can take away the mistreatment of the past, the way I carry myself in the present determines how I carry forward the memories of those mistreatments.

We separate from each other at our own peril.

If we have beliefs we cherish, then we know how important others' beliefs must be to them. And if we have needs, then our own experience equips us to notice the needs of others.

Wait long enough and people will surprise you.
--Randy Pausch

When people start focusing on what they want, what they don't want falls away, and what they want expands, and the other part disappears. --Jack Canfield

Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. Perhaps some man we helped has proved ungrateful … some woman we believed to be a friend has spoken ill of us … some reward we thought we deserved has been denied us. We feel such disappointments so strongly that we can no longer work or sleep.
But isn't that absurd? Here we are on this earth, with only a few more decades to live, and we lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. For life is too short to be little.

-- Andre Maurois

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost. -- H. Jackson Browne (for goodreads!)

Benjamin Franklin

We stand at the crossroads,

each minute,

each hour,

each day,

making choices.

We choose

the thoughts

we allow ourselves to think,

the passions

we allow ourselves to feel,

and the actions

we allow ourselves to perform.

Each choice

is made in the context

of whatever value system

we've selected

to govern our lives.

In selecting that value system,

we are,

in a very real way,

making the most important choice

we will ever make.

Those who believe there is one God

who made all things

and who governs the world by his Providence

will make many choices different

from those who do not.

Those who hold in reverence

that being who gave them life

and worship Him through

adoration,

prayer,

and thanksgiving

will make many choices different

from those who do not.

Those who believe

that mankind are all of a family

and that the most acceptable

service of God

is doing good to man

will make many choices different

from those who do not.

Those who believe

in a future state

in which

all that is wrong here

will be made right

will make many choices different

from those who do not.

Those who subscribe

to the morals of Jesus

will make many choices different

from those who do not.

Since the foundation of all happiness

is thinking rightly,

and since correct action

is dependent on correct opinion,

we cannot be too careful

in choosing the value system

we allow to govern

our thoughts and actions.

And to know that God governs

in the affairs of men,

that he hears and answers prayers,

and that he is a rewarder of them that

diligently seek Him,

is indeed,

a powerful regulator

of human conduct.

[Benjamin Franklin's The Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living]

Someone asked Phillips Brooks one time, "When were you born?" He said, "I'll tell you about it. It was one Sunday afternoon about three-thirty when I was twenty-five years old, just after I had finished reading a great book."

The pattern of our lives determines our eligibility to receive the promptings of the Spirit and to hear the answers to our prayers. Again, let there be no misunderstanding. Heavenly Father does answer our prayers, but often we aren't prepared to hear Him.
--H. Burke Peterson

CS Lewis

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?

It was when I was happiest that I longed most...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.

H. Wallace Goddard

If we take too much responsibility for our own improvement or fail to let Him reign, we make ourselves the gods of our lives.

The great danger of being talented is that we may almost be able to sustain the fiction that we are doing quite well. When we get humble, He can do miracles with us.

At a time of such moral confusion, Satan puts a magnifying glass to our misery; he magnifies foreboding, anxiety, and depression. In contrast Heavenly Father applies the Son to our challenges; when we feel His touch, all is love, joy, and peace.

When God knocks on our door, rather than hide, maybe we should take a deep breath, bow our heads, and run to Him.

Rummage around your soul for gratitude and see if joy is not the result.

The line-upon-line principle

The Only Way to Get to the Next Line Is to Take the One We're on Seriously
To take it seriously means to take a serious look at ourselves and our hearts. King Benjamin calls this "an awful view" (Mosiah 3:25), and it can be awful, because when we take an honest look at our hearts, we often find things we aren't proud of and would just as soon ignore. Just as a good learner can manage to produce a grammatical sentence by sheer force of will and by heavy monitoring and managing of his tongue, we can, through force of will and effort, bring our gospel performance into line so that from the outside we are "in compliance" with all the rules. However, we know in our hearts that this is not enough. The Lord requires overt obedience, but that is only the beginning. The Lord also requires the heart. Throughout the scriptures He makes it perfectly clear that a gift hypocritically given is not counted as a gift. Sitting politely and looking spiritual in church is nice, but it doesn't make up for the cynical thoughts screaming through our heads about the bishop. The Lord doesn't just expect us to do our callings as if we had faith. He wants us to have the faith and act out of that faith. He doesn't just want us to behave toward people as if we loved them. We somehow or other need to actually learn to love them. Getting these principles into our hearts is not easy, and working on them is not necessarily a direct process; but taking the process seriously at a minimum requires us to take an honest look at ourselves, recognize where we are now, and figure out what line we're on. (Br. Dilworth Parkinson)

Heber C. Kimball

“I am perfectly satisfied that my Father and my God is a cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured Being. Why? Because I am cheerful, pleasant, lively, and good-natured when I have his Spirit. That is one reason why I know; and another is ― the Lord said, through Joseph Smith, ‘I delight in a glad heart and a cheerful countenance.’ That arises from the perfection of his attributes; he is a jovial, lively person, and a beautiful man.”

In the corporate world, when business gets tough, they start talking lots about profit centers. Every department has to make money ― be a profit center. It becomes the mantra.
"But God doesn’t see us as profit centers. We are not little factories that must make a net profit. We are His children. He expects to lose money on every single one of us every day of our lives. He is okay with that. He has already set in store an infinite and eternal Atonement ― so there is nothing we can do that will tax His resources. He has us covered." --Wallace Goddard

I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light.
All calm, as it was bright.
--Henry Vaughan, Silex Scintillans (1655), "The World"

It is better to have a steady income than to be fascinating.
--Oscar Wilde

How much larger your life would be if you could become smaller in it. . . You would begin to be interested in others. You would break out of this tiny. . . theatre in which your own little plot is always being played, and you would find yourself under a freer sky, in a street full of splendid strangers. --G. K. Chesterton

Prayers change us and then we can change things. --Oswald Chambers

“Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy. A fool is happy until his mischief turns against him. And a good man may suffer until his goodness flowers.” --The Dhammapada.

“If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be either a man or a woman; it would be, I think, an American cow.”
--William Lyon Phelps