This was one of the more emotional stories I have read in this class. It just struck me how much value can be placed behind the simplest of relationships. This brought up a whole new light on the cost-rewards idea of relationships. It was said that a relationship will only work if you receive more than you pay. You need to be gaining something from the relationship. This always struck me as odd. How could any relationship work if there was one person receiving more than they give? By rights, this would mean that the other person in the relationship would receive less then they give. This was a very foolish thought from me. We all need different things in our lives. Different things have different levels of importance for all different kinds of people. In the story, though the child thought he was the only one gaining anything from this “telephone relationship,” he was giving more to the “Information Please” woman than he had thought.
This made me think about the relationships I’ve had over the years. There is a most recent one that comes to mind. One of my best friends recently went through a serious personal crisis. He didn’t really have anybody to turn to other than me. For a period of nearly a year, he told me everything that was going on in his life. We’d meet often to go out to eat or watch a game and he’d get things off his chest. After “helping” him through this personal crisis, he thanked me for always being there to listen to him. He said he always felt bad that he constantly told all his problems to me. He was most likely thinking that I wasn’t getting anything out of our friendship. He was getting all the rewards, or so he thought. I told him that it meant a lot to me that he felt he could tell me all the things he did. It felt good to be trusted so much. There were many things he told me that he didn’t tell anybody else, not his other friends nor his parents. It made me feel very good to know that he valued the friendship enough to know he didn’t have to hold anything back.
Since then, I’ve been able to go to him with some of my problems. It’s good to have somebody there that is always willing to help you out through your situations and problems in life. I know since I’ve always been there to help him, I have the comfort of knowing that I always have a reliable friend that I can always turn to.
Relationships at first might seem lopsided in the fact that one person of the relationship may be getting most of the attention. However, you’ll never know for sure how much person can value the relationship. Just because one person thinks they are hogging most of the relationship, that necessarily the case. Time can also put a relationship in a different perspective. Being out of high school for a year now, I know who my true friends are. You might not realize how valuable a relationship was/is until a few years down the road.
And Nothing Shall Offend Them
Elder Bednar gave a talk on the idea of offense and how we can choose to take it or not. This has always been an idea that has been very intriguing to me. I’ve always thought that there were some circumstances that we have a right to be offended. There were those inexcusable instances in which other people acted in a way that was rude or vulgar and led us to be rightfully offended. However, when you think about this concept, who is the person that suffers when we someone ‘offends’ us? Is it them that we are creating pain to? No, it is us.
When we choose to let someone’s actions or words offend us, we are only hurting and creating more pain to ourselves. This can lead us to distance ourselves from things that we deep down know that we do not want to be distanced from. Often times, we choose to be offended when the accused offender is not even aware that they performed an offensive act or said something regrettable. When choose to be offended, at least through my own experiences, we can often make regrettable, rash decisions that can damage much of what we love and endear in this life. I had an experience where my best friend and I got in a heated argument. I was so offended at what he did. He and I thought it would be fun to take our prom dates to the dance in a mustang convertible. We were fortunate enough to borrow his neighbor’s car. Towards the end of the night, it was my agreed upon time to drive. However, he decided it wasn’t. This made me angrier than I’ve been in a long time. He offended me! That’s what I took it to be. I gave him the cold shoulder for a week until he asked what was wrong. That is when I blew up at him. We ended working everything up and are back to being great funs. He had no idea what he did. He didn’t realize how much driving that Mustang meant to me. I chose to take offense and acted more extreme than I should have. This similar thing has happened countless times. People are in situations constantly wherein they can chose to take offense or simply choose to get on with their lives. People end up making decisions on extreme emotions and hold grudges that not only deeply affect themselves, but the loved ones they are surrounded with. When we choose to be offended, we not only put ourselves in personal anguish, but we put those who care about us in anguish as well. Choosing to be offended is an extremely prideful and selfish thing to do.
In a sense, we have the option to take the high road and let the whirlwinds that pound us on a daily bases just be a simple breeze and not affect our lives. We will live a much happier life if we do this. We can either act or be acted upon. We must not allow others to control our emotions, even if it is not intended, by becoming offended. We must also be aware of our personal actions. We need to be aware of how we behave. What we say can be taken the wrong way and can hurt people. Though they may choose to not be offended, we can still create feelings that give them a sense of lower self worth. Our words and actions towards others are some of the most powerful forces this life has to offer. We have the power to uplift people’s lives and enrich them or make their lives full of self guilt, low self esteem. We have a great responsibility upon ourselves to act appropriately on both ends. We mustn’t let things offend us and consume our lives, and we must be aware of what we do and say. With the Lord’s help, we can all become a humble person.
Bucket and Dippers
The Buckets and Dippers talk was interesting. I’ve never thought of the people that act this way as the way he portrayed it. I don’t want to start off by saying I have a full bucket and I am the most positively upbeat person you’ll ever meet, because I am far from it. However, after reading over the talk and pondering where I stand in reference to the full or empty buckets, I would definitely say that my bucket is more closer to being full than it is close to being empty. There is still work to be done, however.
We’ve all experienced people with ‘empty buckets.’ In my opinion, when they dip their dipper into our buckets, they are not trying to fill an empty part of themselves, but are trying to bring down those around them so that they themselves do not feel so inadequate. I have had experience with this. I have a sibling who went through a rough stage in his life. He was simply not happy. He saw me going off to college, being active in the church, have lots of friends and have a good job. He, quite frankly, had very little or none of these things, mostly by his choice. He constantly was trying to take something away from my bucket. He was stuck in a literal rut of life. He was not doing anything and going nowhere. He was not in a good point of his life. Now instead of going out and going off to college, getting a job, and getting new friends, he decided he would seclude himself in the basement of my parents home and sleep in till the afternoon and play video games all day. When I would talk to him, he would always try to bring me down. This was a very sad day for me. No matter what I’d say, he’d diminish what I was saying. I never received a good-job from him. It seemed liked he could care less about my existence. However, after talking to him more, it became clear that he was not necessarily mad at me, he was upset with how his life was turning out and instead of going out and doing something about it, he’d downplay what his peers and siblings were doing to make him feel better. In essence, he was in a state of denial.
He has since tried to get out of his rut, and has met it with extremely mild success. He has stopped ‘dipping his dipper in other people’s buckets’ and taken the responsibility to himself to make him feel better. He realized that trying to diminish or take away someone else’s happiness only made him and those around him more miserable. We cannot become happier by making someone else miserable. We cannot get stuck in a state of denial. We must always put the responsibility on ourselves and try to become happier that way.
Learning Model
Something that has been made clear to me as I’ve been at BYU-Idaho for just over one semester now, is that there is much more responsibility upon the student. Students are essentially in charge of their own learning. We, as students, get out of our learning what we are willing to put in. In the PowerPoint, there were three changes that led to new responsibilities for students. Contrary to the traditional learning model that is implemented in most high schools and universities, the new learning model that BYU-I has implemented makes the student realize how blessed we are to be obtaining such a good education.
We have the responsibility to prepare ourselves, to participate, and to help others. We can no longer simply go through the motions, something that I was quite accustomed to in high school. I can no longer simply show up to class and listen to the teacher talk the whole period. I have to be prepared to discuss before I come to class. I have to be prepared so that I can participate and contribute to class activities and discussions. This, in turn, can help out my fellow students. Many times have I not understood a certain idea or principle, but a student brought up a comment or question that cleared that uncertainty and let me understand. There is also nothing else that we can do that can further our understanding than teaching others. We have to have a great knowledge of the thing we are explaining. As we try to explain to another student aloud, many of our uncertainties of the subject can be made clear.
Aside from the technical aspects of the learning model, there are aspects that are much less understandable to the non-LDS world. One of the most, if not the most important aspects of furthering our education here at BYU-I or other places is our faith and dependence on Christ. If we reach unto Christ with a humble heart and pure intent, then he will help us understand that which we are being taught. We need to do all that we can, and with the Lord’s help, we can understand anything. There are a few ways that we can come closer to Christ and these include but are not limited to prayer, obedience to his commandments, and action in faith. We need to do more than just say we believe in Him and His gospel, we need to show we do through our works performed with true intent and humility. If we can do these things, the Lord can and will help us in all that we do and need help in. If we do these things, he promises us revelation and guidance.
These are our responsibilities as a learner. Teachers at BYU-I have a different set of responsibilities. They are to lead and guide us and direct us on the right path, but in the end, we the students are responsible for our own learning and comprehension. The teachers here are mentors and tools for us to take great advantage of. They are not here to just lecture us and drag us along as we attend their classes. We have much more responsibility than that. This is no longer high school or the traditional way of learning. We don’t have to be here. It is a great blessing to be here in which many people could take our place. We need to no longer be a passive learner and just float along in the breeze that education has been up until this point. It is a privilege to be here, and we need to treat it as such. We owe it to the tithe payers, the professors, our parents and family, the administrators, and most importantly, we owe it to us and the Lord.
You Project
Catherine Stewart
I want to first start off by saying that I haven’t solely been talking to you in class the last few weeks just because of this project. Noticing you in class and how you react with others and your conversation with your peers has made one thing abundantly clear, you are a genuine person.
This is not meant to be just a comment because I didn’t get to know you better. It is very obvious that you are. You don’t seem to be the loudest person or somebody who needs to draw attention to yourself. I see this as a good thing. I hope your friends realize what a treasure they have. You are a genuinely nice person. This was very easy to notice by sitting next to you. There were a few days where I just would be upset due to the combination of recently being fired, my car getting a flat tire, and stress from school, finding a new job, and my church calling. Your smile is something that can turn someone’s day around. When you smile, you seem genuinely happy to see the person. This is a gift that you should continue to bless people’s lives with throughout your own life.
Your laugh is another thing I noticed. It’s something that can just light up a room. Who knows if your laughing because something funny actually happened, or if your just being polite and don’t want to make the person feel awkward. That is just the kind of person you are.
I know that the ‘niceness’ you show everybody is not a charade. Nobody could ever pretend to be as nice as you are. I hope everybody that comes in contact with you realizes what a rare, genuine person you are.
-Chase Riepl
The Tongue of Angels
The power of the spoken word has always been engrained in my head that it is one of the most powerful tools we possess as a human being on this Earth. We have the power to make someone’s life happier by uplifting them through positive words. We also have the power to wreak havoc on their soul by sending daggers of despair through their hearts. What we say to people and how we say it has a huge influence on all those we associate ourselves with. We need to always be aware of what we say and how people may take it.
Language has an unbelievably high toll on the health of a relationship. Communication is the most important aspect of nearly any relationship. What we say and how we say it can have everlasting consequences on the relationship, be they good or bad. We have a great influence on our loved ones, and for the position I am in, I know I have a great influence on my brother and sister and friends. What I say to my sister is especially important. She is 13 and is trying to adjust to the life of being a teenager and all the drama a 13 year old girl has to face in middle school. Her self-esteem is not necessarily high at this point in her life. She has always looked up to me. When I went off to college, she was devastated. We have always been extremely close and I’ve always tried to be the best big brother I humanly could. In this fragile time in her life, what people say to her can shape who she becomes. Recently, a boy in her class told her she wasn’t as cute as a certain other girl. This devastated my sister, who happens to be beautiful, and not solely from my point of view. Whenever I talk to her, I always try to say positive things. I never want to say anything negative, even in a joking manner. She could take this the wrong way, and from how much she values my opinion, this could be devastating to her psyche.
Something that I must work on is what I say to people. I often say something to someone jokingly and they take it a way that I had not intended. This is something that has always been a problem for me. I have been ‘called out’ on this many times throughout my life and especially in high school. I don’t intend to come across as arrogant or ‘snooty,’ but that is often what is gathered by others from what I say. I never really realized this until recently when a girl of significance brought this to my understanding. I have rarely intended to be a ‘mean’ person, but looking back onto certain situations, it is clear to me that I need to be much more careful of what I say. There have been countless situations where I have said something and immediately want to take it back. Words cannot be taken back. Even if we are forgiven, the words have been said and the damage done. This has been something that I have been working especially hard on. This has been something I have prayed about daily. Looking back on my life, I can definitely see how our words have the power to uplift those around us or make their lives a living hell. I hope that I can continue to become more aware and alert of the things I say so that I might not say something that is interpreted in a way I do not desire. I know I am not alone in having this problem. I hope we can all become more aware of our words and use them for good and not the way Satan wants us to.
Recognizing Your Emotions
This project was one of the most interesting I have ever had the privilege of doing. I never have thought myself of being an over-emotional guy, but this may have changed how I perceived myself. I never have just stopped and thought about the emotions I experience and how they can change on an instant. This just goes to show how complex we truly are.
As the hours of each day came and went, I kept track every time I experienced a feeling or a change of emotions. A trend that I need to work on bucking is the attitude I wake up in nearly every morning. I also have a feeling that I am not unique in my feelings I experience each morning. More often than not, when I wake up, I am just flat out grouchy. I always tend to wake up before my body wants me too, and because of this, I am not a happy person. I also noticed that after a shower and I begin to wake up, my mood gets better.
A strong emotion change came when my friend from ISU came up to Rexburg to watch the Jazz-Lakers game. He’s a Lakers fan; I am a loyal Jazz fan. It’s normally pretty dangerous when you get the two of us together, and don’t ask me why we thought this time would be an exception. I was very excited to see my best friend that I haven’t seen in a few months, and we went out to eat and had a good time catching up and reminiscing. It was comforting seeing a face that I had grown up with and known all my life. It was a great time to be back with my best buddy all through middle school and high school. However, this calm and tranquility didn’t last long between us. As soon as the game tipped off, the moods both of us had immediately changed. From the get-go, his Lakers destroyed my Jazz. I was not a happy person. I got extremely upset with him and the things he was saying. My mood changed in an instant, something I noticed can happen quite frequently.
Another strong wave of emotions came over me last night as I prepared to give my group presentation on emotions today. I was so nervous! I had a great day yesterday and got a girl’s number that I had been working up the courage to ask for nearly the entire semester. I was flying high! However, when I came back to my apartment from all my daily activities, the stress and worry began to set in. I felt so unprepared. It was more difficult to get the whole group together than I had originally planned, and I felt like we had a lot left that we had not covered. I thought we had so much more to go over. I thought I individually needed a lot of work to be done! However, this stress soon leaved me as soon as I began to get to work and realized that there would be enough time to get everything done that I needed to get done. A wave of calm enveloped me. It felt so comforting compared to the stress that had me by the neck just a few moments before.
This activity made me realize how complex our emotions are and how they change from minute to minute. Even if you do not consider yourself as an emotional person, doing this will let you realize how your feelings change constantly. This was a very insightful project and was very valuable to me and all those who participated.
Great Measure of Discipleship
The Oyster
There are many great and powerful ways to measure our discipleship to our Lord and savior. One of the most conclusive way, if not the most efficient, to show our true discipleship is to see how we view others. This can be closely related to how we treat others, as our view of them directly affects how we treat them. There are many objects to which we can relate how we view others. One of these objects is an oyster. This applies to me more than I can iterate. How can an oyster compare to how many people view others? Let me explain.
There are many, many times that we simply ‘judge a book by its cover’ and rarely give something or someone a fair chance, just based on their appearance. I am susceptible to this, as I am sure many others are. I wonder how many occasions occurred that a person walking along a beach or swimming came across an oyster, and mistaking it for some clam or nothing special at all, missed out on the pearl inside. How many missed opportunities were there because people never wanted to take the effort to take a longer look at this mysteriously ugly object, this oyster? Had they taken the time to give this oyster a chance, they could have discovered the pearl inside.
It is shameful to think of all the opportunities I have missed and most likely will miss unless some part of my nature can change. Although I’ve never considered myself overly shallow, cocky, or arrogant, reading the talk by Brother Southwick made me think about my own downfalls on how I view people. Like said earlier, I know that this is not solely a problem that faces me. Looking back at my friends in high school, I always drifted towards people that were ‘pretty, handsome, or simply good looking.’ This in itself is not a bad thing. It boosts your confidence when you surround yourself with people who are confident in themselves. However, this becomes a problem when you will not associate with people simply because they are not ‘good looking’ enough to be seen with you or don’t wear nice enough clothes or look wealthy enough.
Looking back throughout my life, I know for a fact that I would treat someone different just based on their appearance or how I perceived their socio-economic class. I wouldn’t necessarily be rude or mean to them, but I didn’t want to be seen around them and wouldn’t give them an opportunity for me to see who they really are. I feel like I have become someone better at this problem in my life, but I know it is still a major problem. We need to erase this oyster concept completely. When we classify someone as an oyster, we immediately degrade them and put ourselves ahead of them. We need to realize that we are all children of our Father in Heaven and are all beautiful. So many people have great things to offer us in this life. We need to take away our stereotypes and arrogance and become humble. If we do this, we can see people as who they really are. We need to try to make it so everyone is a pearl. If we can do this, we will be blessed beyond measure both by our Heavenly Father, and by the experiences and relationships gained by putting aside our differences.
Personal Listening Challenge
This Personal Listening challenge was one of the most rewarding things I have had the pleasure of doing in quite a while. Let me start of by saying I have one of the best roommates. I really lucked out! We have a ton of fun together and I feel like I can actually be myself around him. However, we do seem to have quite the clash of interests. I am huge into sports. Without my Utah Jazz and Boise State Broncos, I’m not sure I could make it through this life. I also have big interests in business and the economy. These are the things I like to talk about when there isn’t much else to do. He, on the other hand, is quite the ‘gamer.’
He loves his computer and video games. I have never been into them. Sure, I’ve played them but it was always because my friends wanted to. He loves playing his games, and he loves even more to talk about them. He’d also talk about things such as life in Orem, Utah and his past relationships. I hate to say it, but I could honestly care less about much of what he talks about. I’d always try to override what he is saying by butting in and telling him about what I think the front office of the Utah Jazz should do in order to become championship contenders. That or I’d tell him about the banks I’ve applied to become an intern for in Downtown Boise. I’d always have something better to say, or so I thought. I didn’t consciously try to ignore him, but I definitely was not the best listener. So, with this challenge, I decided I would make that change.
Even when I tried to show him I was genuinely not interested, he always continued to talk away. He just loves to talk. Well, with this challenge, I decided I will actually make an effort at consciously listening. When he got back from his night classes and I was doing my homework, he wanted to talk about this girl he met. Instead of just making the shallow responses and not taking my eyes of the computer screen, I decided I would actually listen. I turned away from the computer and tried to actually care about what he was telling me. There is that old idea of doing something you don’t like until you actually like it. With this thought in mind, I continued to listen. I did this night after night, and yes, there were many times where the conversation would grow painfully dull. However, if he wanted to talk about it, I would listen. That is what a good roommate and friend should do. After doing this for a week, I noticed it started to become a sort of habit. By no means am I perfect at it, for there are many times where I still tune him out, but I know I am getting better at it.
I am sure he can tell a difference. I know I do not like it when I am talking about something I consider important and somebody just turns the other shoulder. I need to treat him as I hope he’d treat me.
Compliment Project
This class continues to assign reward projects and challenges. This was one of my personal favorites, albeit somewhat difficult. In today’s popular culture, there is this idea that all men must be macho and show no signs of weakness. That is what is portrayed today and this is what I was raised to believe. This is the reason guys have to be sarcastic and essentially ‘jerks’ to our friends. We cannot ever show we actually care about their friendship. In my opinion, this is also the reason when I have a serious, sit-down conversation with a friend about relationships or uncertainties about the future, there always has to be something else going on. We need to be playing a ‘manly’ video game, watching sports, playing sports, etc. On the few occasions I had a sit-down conversation at a restaurant, there were moments where it would get awkward, even though I considered them to be a brother. We just cannot show signs of weakness or affection towards our “buddies.” With this idea in mind, this compliment project proved to be a little more difficult that I was expecting,
I have a group of three best friends with whose friendship I value equally. We are brothers and always will be. We can tell each other anything and everything. We are all at different universities, but when we get together, it’s just as if we saw each other the day before. Nothing seems to change, and for that, I am extremely grateful. One of them is going to school at ISU in Pocatello. We’ve made many road trips to Boise this semester, and these drives give us a lot of time to talk about things. We’ll cover everything from who we think will win the Super Bowl to what other friends are doing to what we want to do for our careers. We cover everything. We’ve also helped each other through many of our toughest moments in life, whether It’s breaking up with a girlfriend, getting in a huge fight with the family, getting in a car accident to just not being too fond of life at the moment. We never would say it, but it was always just a given that we appreciated each other’s friendship. With this challenge in mind, I decided I would verbally say how much I appreciate his friendship. Yes, it was a little awkward.
On the ride back from Boise, after talking about his views of the church (he is not a member), I told him I was glad he felt comfortable around me enough to talk about things like that. He has made it perfectly clear he has no intention of joining the church. He has good morals and a very good home life, but just shows no interest in learning of the gospel. This is an instance where I believe a friendship and being an example is more important that trying to shove the gospel down his throat. He told me I was the only person he could talk to about stuff like this. It made me feel good. However, after this moment, there was an awkward pause, and of course, we had to turn up the music to try and cover up the fact we both said we appreciated each other’s friendship. This will be as close as I will ever get to showing my friends how much I enjoy and appreciate their friendships.
I wish I could get better at giving compliments and showing appreciation, but I just know if I can. I will continue to work on this, for it is one part of me that needs some of the mos
Blog Posts:
I wanted to discuss more about our hypothetical situation of whether or not we would get married to our perfect love knowing in one year they would know longer be with us. The first situation is where they would pass away after one year. In this situation, I would definitely take up the relationship. Like in my twitter posts, I like to live by the thought of
Never Regretting Something that made YOU Smile. There is also the saying that it is better to have loved and lost then never have loved at all. I do not understand why we shouldn't love because we are afraid of losing it. Yes it is true that losing a true love will be a terrible loss in which we wish we would never have to bare. However, imagine how happy we would be for that one year! Why should we not experience that true happiness just because it has a finite ending date?
The second scenario is where our true love would betray us. This is a much greater pain then losing a love due to death. With death, we know we will still see them again some day. We can be happy together for all eternity. However, with betrayal, it is much more serious. They knowingly hurt us after we put so much love into the relationship. However, with a betrayal, there is still potential to get back together. It would be a terribly long and difficult process. However, if the betrayal was an accident and they were truly remorseful, I would like to think I could forgive her and let her back in my life.
In both scenarios, I would take the perfect love. It is always better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all...
With all this talk about language, it got me thinking about my personal life. I've always been somebody who uses sarcasm as a second language. This has often led me to situations that were awkward, offensive to someone else, and entirely avoidable. Still, I wasn't one to stop the sarcasm, mostly due to habit. I just always assumed that people knew me well enough to understand when I was being serious and when I was being sarcastic. Apparently, not everybody understood me this way. One day over the Christmas break, I met up with a girl who I always had a crush on, and apparently, she had a crush on me throughout high school. Quite frankly, she told me about a time in which I made her cry due to something I said. I don't remember what I said and when she told me what I did, I thought to myself that I would never actually mean those words. I know I was being sarcastic in that situation. However, she did not. We are on great terms today, but due to that miscommunication, I could have ruined a friendship forever. Thankfully, it didn't turn out that way. We need to all be aware of what we say and how we say it!
