A Bit About Lines

Since last I wrote I've had a great deal on my mind. There have been several changes in my life, and the shifting of multiple circumstances, all of which I feel have led me to write this blog post. I've been meaning to write again for some time, but in mulling over different topic ideas, I wasn't sure what I wanted to write. Normally I would try to circumvent this problem and just spend a post or two rambling, getting myself out of my creative rut and back into the swing of things. But every time I sat down to put words to my thoughts, things just didn't feel right. Something was off. So I would putter around for a line or two and then decide I should probably go do something else before I got frustrated and lost all hope of writing with inspiration.

I think it's fair to say that it is part of our human nature to draw lines, both physical and metaphorical. We draw a line to easily figure out how to connect Point A to Point B. We draw lines to divide things... "This side of the line is mine; that side of the line is yours." And in our lives we draw lines to signify and end or a beginning.

Perhaps we draw a finish line to show the end of a race. Perhaps it's a decision to give up this activity because there are other things out there to spend time on. Every one of us, day in and day out, has to interact with lines. We create and destroy these lines, or sometimes we circumvent or change these lines.

The trouble we get in to (at least the trouble that I get into) is in determining where to draw the lines. I'm not a perfect guy, and I don't have perfect judgement. Well, see, lines require judgement. So inevitably, I'm gonna draw lines in wrong places every so often. And by every so often I really mean all the time. That idea drives me crazy. I'm the kind of fellow that is very flexible. It takes a lot to set me on edge, aggravate me, or otherwise convince me to lose my cool. But that means that it's hard for me to draw lines at all, much less draw lines in the right places. I'd like to think that nowadays I have a pretty good moral barometer, and a decent sense of logical and illogical. So I try to make correct decisions, which really is what lines are. However as I said, I'm imperfect. My logic is often imperfect, and honestly my whole outlook and perspective is usually imperfect.

Now I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one in this boat, so to all of you fellow imperfect people out there, I have some advice as to how I've come to try to draw lines a little more successfully.

As a brief aside, to those of you perfect people out there reading this...go read a different blog.

First things first...and this has been the toughest thing for me to learn, I promise:

Don't sweat the mistakes.

 We ARE imperfect. And we make mistakes. It SUCKS! But the truth of the matter is, mistakes are made to be learned from. The hard part is the consequences that come from making mistakes. Enter the epic metaphor...

Making decisions is like stretching out a rubber band and tying it off at both ends. (Don't worry about why we're tying rubber bands in the first place. It's irrelevant for my purposes right now! You silly over-analytical critics.) If you make the right decision, you pick a good solid rubber band, and you tie some pretty good knots and it's solid. It'll stretch and bend and pull a little here and there as it gets pulled one way or another, but it stays put and all is good.

Sometimes, though, we don't know our rubber bands well enough. Sometimes they're a bit older than we thought they were. Sometimes we tied the wrong knot at one end or the other. Perhaps we just tied the rubber band at the wrong time and you got distracted before you could finish tying it. SNAP!! There it goes...flying off to the opposite corner of the room, or nailing you right on the most annoyingly sensitive spot on your finger. Hurray for consequences! For one reason or another, you rubber band couldn't hold it's place. Well now you've gotta go hunt down where it flew off to...or apologize to the person it snapped on the nose...or suck on the welt you now have on your finger.

But do you go and forever vow to never ever again pick up rubber band tying?! In all reality you probably should, because not everyone spends their time tying rubber bands to things. However, you're the center of an epic metaphor at the moment, so what do you actually do? Well first you deal with the broken rubber band. Find it, kiss your finger and make it feel better, or go kiss the other person's nose and make them feel better. Then you analyze what happened.

And then you realize that your decision really wasn't the only one you're going to make ever. There's gonna be other rubber bands to tie! (For reasons likely much sillier than the last ones that had you tying those rubber bands.)

That knowledge is what's at the heart of being able to keep moving on despite making the wrong decisions. You can't let yourself get caught up in the moment and overwhelmed with one decision that is looming over your head, or that you made and screwed up on. There's still a lot of life ahead of you, and that means more lines to draw, which means if nothing else you'll have more opportunities to try again and do better the next time.

Piece of advice Number The Next One

Don't try to dig your way to China.

I promise I'm not being obnoxious with this thought. As a kid you get the epic idea "Hey, I wanna go see the other side of this big world, and instead of being dumb and like everyone else who walks around the globe to see it, I'm going to dig straight through the planet and pop out in China! Straight lines are the BEST!!!"

Then you grow up. And you learn that the world is really really Really Really REALLY REALLY big. And it's also filled with epically hard rocks and then really really hot lava through the middle that would take some kind of epic equipment that only exists in the mind of a really epic sci-fi writer. So like most little kids your dream has been shattered. You mope around for a little bit, and then move on to the next epic dream that seems a little more achievable than that one.

Well some grown-ups are a bit silly and forget that they're grown-ups, and decide to dig their way to China again. They set a goal, draw a line, and make a decision that they're going from Point A to Point [China] and it's straight through all the rock and lava and whatever that lies in their path. "I'm epic!" quoth they, "I've got the right sorts of equipment, I can dig my way to Point [China]!!"

Well here's the problem with that. First off, they miss all of the incredible sights that they find along the journey. Curvy lines, and lines that zig and zag, will still get you where you want to go, or accomplish what you want to accomplish. Perhaps someone is driving you crazy, and you really need to communicate with them what's upsetting you and tell them that they need to fix it. Does that mean you throw down the straight line, look at them and say "You're a jerk, you're driving me crazy, you gotta cut it out!"? Well...probably not. Anyone who knows anything about communication knows that saying exactly what you think at the moment you think it is not always the best way to communicate.

Anyway, back to the point, another problem with digging your way to China, is that if you get stuck along the way, instead of being stuck somewhere that you can adjust your course or take a break or rethink the line you drew, you're stuck deep in the earth, surrounded by more earth, with nowhere to go but backwards. Who enjoys that?! Sorry, but like I said earlier, I'm not perfect. I get stuck all the time. If I had to back out of my tunnel to try to dig a different tunnel, I'd have a ton of holes all over the place and no idea of where I was or where I was going.

The purpose of the lines we draw is to make a change somewhere, and move us forward in our progression as beings. We're all seeking to learn and improve our lives, and we have to draw lines in different places to do that. So don't draw straight lines all over the place! You'll wind up stuck, or boxed in, or otherwise feeling silly and like you're going nowhere.

Now for my last bit of advice.  

Don't draw too many lines all over the place!


One of my favorite games to play as a kid was what we called "The Dot Game." I don't know if there's an official name for the game, but we're going to call it "The Dot Game" for now. The game was played on a grid of dots, and the purpose of the game was to take turns drawing lines between the dots, seeking to create boxes for yourself. Now the key to this game was to be smart with the way you connected the dots, setting up your opponent to where if they put a line in the wrong place, it resulted in you getting lots of boxes from just one mistake on their part. How did you accomplish such an artful strategy? Well you had to place your lines in long stretches, all relating to each other some way. If you just draw random lines all over the place to make yourself feel like you were drawing lots of epic lines, then you wound up getting played like a two dollar banjo.

So what does this have to do with my theories about lines? Well if you draw lines all over the place, drawing them just for the sake of being able to saw "I'm drawing lines because I'm awesome!!!", then you wind up getting surpassed by everyone else who knows how to draw lines in a way that lets them relate to each other and acquires them box after box of achievements. Every line you draw should have a purpose, and should relate to the other lines that you draw, so that you get box after box and you rack up the score. If you do that, then you wind up ahead in the game, and in this instance, you wind up progressing happily through life as a skilled player of "The Dot Game of Life." (Yeah...you like what I did there.)

TL;DR
First off...if you don't know what the heading means...look it up and feel educated.

Secondly, don't get overwhelmed by this thing in life that is line drawing. Everyone has to make decisions. It's by divine design that we have the freedom to make choices for ourselves, and the ONLY way to move through life and return to our Heavenly Father as we are supposed to, is to exercise that freedom and draw lines here and there, making decision after decision to improve our lives and become everything that we are capable of becoming. It's a daunting task, and what really sucks about it is that it's a trial and error task. But it's a learning process, and as such, it is full of so many opportunities for joy and happiness at the realization that you draw the right line in the right place and are a better person because of it. I know that through this process, and with the help of a loving Father in Heaven who seeks to help us know the best places to draw lines of different kinds, we can achieve amazing things in our lives and work miracles in the lives of others, and eventually return to live with Father in a life that is perfect and eternal.

So, as usual, let me remind you that life isn't as insane as you would like to think it is. There are simple things everywhere that make life easier to understand and get through. All you have to do is learn how to see them in the right light and realize them for the sources of wisdom that they are. I hope that you can find inspiration from the crazy thoughts I come up with, and I also hope that you realize that my wisdom is not my own, but comes from he who watches and guides us all, a loving Heavenly Father.

A Bit About Perfection

Oh yeah...this one's going to be a keeper. Perfection? What is it? Is it a myth? Is it attainable? Talk about your "yes and no" questions...that one's a bigun. As a wonderful friend of mine would say..."It depends!!!" Darn right it depends. So how about when it comes to the perfect day? What is it? Well it depends. My perfect day is going to be different from your perfect day. Sorry. I hate answers like that too. Don't sweat it. But there are a few general things you have to pay attention to. Check it out.

A Perfect Day Is:

Waking up and stubbing your toe on the bag you wanted to make sure you didn't forget when you ran out of the door in the morning.

Realizing you don't have to pitch in for lunch because you left your wallet at home. (The fact that you don't have money doesn't hurt the cause either, but hey let's not get too carried away counting our blessings!)

Making notes for a lukewarm lesson in FHE to only forget them on the table as you're heading out and pulling off a totally ad lib monologue that was eloquent enough to make everyone at least look like they were enthralled.

Having a song pop up on the radio that you'd forgotten you kind of liked and put you in an AWESOME mood...conveniently right before you're about to go hang out with people.

Okay seriously though. Everyone has days that bring them down. Each and every one of us has things that bother us, or upset us, or give us reason to resent the situation we are in. Days are full of nonsense that makes you grumpy and angry and maybe even grouchy! Perhaps you had awesome plans that fell through because the person you made plans with had other plans come up. Perhaps you had an insanely long list of things that you absolutely HAD to get done today, and by noon you had to throw it out the window because there was no way you could get it all done without having some kind of epic time machine or super speed capability. (Super moms and their magic wands don't count in this conversation.) In all seriousness though, perfection is not a state of being. If you ever hear anyone say that it is, stomp on their foot and then direct them to the following statement:

Perfection is a PROCESS!!! I don't think there's a switch that can be flipped at any point and then BLAM!!! you're perfect. My religion is one of progression. This progression is Eternal. We believe that there is a plan for us, and part of that plan involves an eternal track of progression that our mortal life is only a miniscule portion of. In life we go through a process of refinement where we prepare ourselves for this eternity of progression and then if we become refined enough, we begin to learn what is needed to become just like the God that we worship. Perfection, as a state of being, is not a defined requirement to proceed on this path of progression. There was one that lived through mortality perfectly, and sacrificed himself so that we as the rest of the world, would not have to. For us, then, perfection isn't something we have to achieve. It's a process that we take part in to reach the end goal that we are after, which is to become like our Father in Heaven Himself and to return to live with him; we seek to perfect ourselves.

What does that have to do with having the perfect day? Well if you think about it, if perfection is this process by which we are doing what we can to perfect ourselves, then the perfect day, is a day in which we have done our best to work towards that goal; or to perfect ourselves. So does the perfect day have to be perfect?! Nope. (It just blew your mind how that actually made sense, didn't it?!) A perfect day can be full of shenanigans that you didn't expect; things that weren't what you planned on, or things that you didn't get done. But you do your best, don't let the little things get to you, and you can lay down at the end of the day with a smile on your face because you know that there's tomorrow, and the day after that...and the day after that. Little things will happen to you every day, often that you probably don't even realize, that will shape your day into something good. And if that happens, guess what...YOU'VE HAD A PERFECT DAY! Take a look back on the day. Did your plans fall through? What did you do instead? OH WAIT!? You mean to tell me you did laundry that had been sitting there for longer than it really should have been for any decent self-respecting person?! Coughcoughthat'sahintcoughcough. Did you sit down and finish a book that made you feel epic and awesome and inspired? (Blog in inspiration incoming...Also any Twilight books don't count for that statement.)

It doesn't matter whether or not everything was awesome during your day. There are only a few kinds of things that you can do during a day that you will look back on and go "Today sucked, I really shouldn't have done that." And guess what...there's tomorrow! And also there's repentance. Remember...Christ lived his life perfectly to overcome our imperfection. Because of his sacrifice for us, perfection then comes from perfecting ourselves as best we can and honoring that sacrifice that he made. If we do that, honestly and truthfully, he will make up the difference for what we truly are incapable of accomplishing ourselves.

The truth of the matter is, the simple things that make life wonderful (and perfect) are right there in front of you. You just have to look at them in the right light.