Things are amazing

Neil Pasricha did a good job of reminding me just how awesome my life is at this very moment. Honestly, today has been a pretty down day for me. Things with our old landlord aren't progressing. The situation from the end of July is still unresolved despite all our efforts and entirely due to the landlord's belligerence and escalation. It feels as if we are back at square one with no one to help us. Which is probably true now that the constables office is no longer involved. Watching this talk helped remind me of two things in particular. One, life is made up of so many little awesome things. Clean socks everyday is a little thing that brings me happiness. It is simple, but still wonderful and brings a smile to my face. There are so many of those things around me at this very moment. Blue ink ballpoint pens that click and leather journals, access to nearly any song that I want to listen to (which still amazes me at least once a week. It was torture as a little kid in love with music trying to get through to the radio station to request a song and hoping that they would play it), cold water in my fridge and a clean cup to drink it from. After taking a moment to reflect on these small things that bring joy, I think about the other amazing things that make up my world around me. A touchpad phone and tablet. Truly awesome that I live in an age when that technology exists and is affordable to the consumer and not just the insanely rich. I got my phone for a penny. This was/is awesome. I am in a great school and will be graduating in a month. Which is incredibly scary, but also amazing. Then we get on to the big things that are awesome like my wife, my family, and the many good friends that I have. Add in democracy and the gospel and my life is epicly awesome. (Is there a correct way to spell epic in an adverb form?)
The second thing I was reminded of is probably the most important one. I have a choice. I can choose to be miserable or I can choose to move forward. God has given us agency and the control of ourselves. Our choice is the great focal point of our happiness. If we choose to be happy we can become happy. I like that Neil said we should still grieve because that is important. Yet we can move forward and be happy. We have 100 years or less in this life and man was made so that he might have joy. Let's not choose otherwise.

The Dangerous Assumption of Personal Infallibility

What happens when we allow ourselves the possibility of being wrong? Why is it that we have such a hard time acknowledging our own fallibility? Kathryn Schulz said in her TED talk that we are conditioned to believe that the way to be successful is to never be wrong and that if we are wrong it means there is something wrong with us. Getting things wrong is fundamental to our humanity. So honestly admit to the possibility that you could be wrong about something right now.

I think that when we admit to this possibility it pushes us to find out. We seek more information. It leads us to discover, create, learn, and become better. It is much easier to accept wrongness and deal with it when I discover it through my own seeking rather than having it shoved in my face by life.

At one point, Kathryn said that it can be dangerous to trust too much in the feeling of being on the correct side. We feel like we are on solid ground right up until we realize that we are wrong. I agree with her that we need a more reliable guide than our own self-assuredness. Yet, she never mentioned what that more reliable guide should be. What should be our guide? There are three guides that are incredibly reliable when used together. There is revelation from God, both personally and through the scriptures/prophets, our own faculties for reason and emotion, and also empirical evidence in the world. I try to use all of these in the correct balance. I must open myself to them though and admit that I might be wrong. It is easy to rely too heavily on our own faculties and block out or disregard the other methods of getting knowledge. I ahve to realize that it’s okay to say “Maybe I’m wrong.” Things might not work out how I imagine, but that doesn’t mean I should try. Something else might happen and that’s okay.