WFB, RIP.

Ah, grasshopper, you have just stumbled on the Buddhist first and second Noble Truth: Life is suffering – birth to death. If you don’t get the slurpee, you suffer. If you get the slurpee, you suffer when the last, noisy suck on the straw brings the pleasure to an end.

The solution: Noble Truth #3: just make your decision and don’t cling or get attached to the result.

Ya, I know, easier said than done.

Mel (#7), regarding your experience of setting up tithing payment automatically, my memory is that President Kimball spoke several times about making the most important choices in our lives, like to obey the Word of Wisdom, only once. Your automatic tithing payment seems very much in that vein. (Sorry–I can’t find any references for President Kimball in a quick lds.org search, so I might be misremembering.)

The blessing is that you get exactly what you wanted. The curse is the same, because all other possibilities are closed.

(A “curse” is something you perceive as a disadvantage, whereas a “blessing” is something you perceive as an advantage.)

On the other hand, I agree with the basic premise of this post. When I was younger—and I see this attitude in a lot of young people today—I attempted to be broad-minded (before I became a born again Mormon) and I saw people letting their kids choose their beliefs, etc. I now believe it leaves one without bearings.

It’s a tightrope, holding to certain standards and doing it in the most loving generous way possible. And like I said, the older I get, the more I realize I of myself am nothing.

Anybody interested in missionary work knows what I mean. As a TBM, it’s easy for me to point to people who are basically good who simply don’t progress because they’re comfortable where they are. It’s a little harder for me to recognize when I’m also one of those people.

Sometimes doing things merely out of habit, while efficient, can remove the meaning they have in your life. The experience of looking at your tithing check and choosing to hand it over to the bishop can be much greater than having it automatically sent from your paycheck because you decided that 25 years ago you would pay tithing. And I’m not sure it is out-weighed by the feeling of pride of paying tithing 25 years in a row because you eliminated your own ability to mess that up, but maybe it is. But part of me thinks that discipline is making the choice, not eliminating it. While there is something to be said from being committed, there needs to be balance in everyone’s life, and that includes in establishing and maintaining routine, the life in between following every whim of the moment and being ironclad and closed to any future reconsideration in every decision we make. Sometimes goals we set don’t seem like where we want to be once our vision changes.

I don’t find that the choices I make now are any less important or difficult than those I made as a teenager or young adult. Remaining on your current path is still a choice. We’ve all seen people who thought they were past these “hard decisions” have to make them again later in life: whom and whether to marry, whether to adopt a nephew in need when they already felt done having children, finding a new career, moving across the country or world, etc. These are just the decisions visible to the outsiders.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s not over til Elvis leaves the building.