Well it has been a couple of days since I have posted something so since I'm at the library right now and me and my psych group just finished our final paper I decided to write something more to relax a little bit. I know it sounds ironic that all I've been doing for the past two days has been writing - first my ten page paper for art interrelations and then this twelve page paper for psych research class - and I find it relaxing to write more haha, oh well.
Yesterday just before I decided to stop doing homework and go have dinner I was thinking about the lesson for FHE. As an FHE mom I try most of the times to really think of something to tell the group that would be useful for them. I try to think of the things I struggle with and try to generalize it. So I was having dinner I was reading through my D&C notes and B of M notes. It took me about 15 minutes until I read the scripture in D&C that it says "beware concerning yourselves." This scripture made me think of the one scripture in 3 Nephi when it says that there was nothing in the land that would stop them from progressing lest they should fall into transgression. That's it! I though to myself. I started thinking about Pres. Maxwell's talk about agency and how he said that agency is the ONLY thing that is truly ours to give to the Lord. Everything else we have already belongs to him. Hence, the importance of using our agency adequately. This is the ONLY gift we have for him, the ONLY thing he wants from us. It would be so easy, but it's true, there is nothing that can stop us from progressing but ourselves. Temptations and deceptions will come but at the end of the day it is our decision.
I find it funny how I try to relate everything I do to a gospel principle. This time I found agency as an essential topic in the Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina. This is the classic example of the struggle between an apparent determinism and agency. Anna - the main character - loses everything because she truly believes that she is the victim. She blames everything that happens on the environment, her relatives, the cosmos, heredity etc. The novel starts by the following phrase: all happy familes are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. It is funny to find out that at the end it is exactly the opposite. Happiness is rooted in our individual characteristics as sons and daughters of God. This hold true for the Oblonsky family in the novel who are extremely unhappy - they are self-centered and they abandomned themselves to the idea that they can't help it. I'll stop giving details now for those of you who would like to read the novel. It is a fantastic piece of art! You should read it, the only problem is that it's very long - almost a thousand page book. But hey it's worth it! I promise you won't regret it!
In short, thinking about agency these past couple of days and trying to apply that for my semester paper has been a good experience. Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more!
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