Right or Easy

Admittedly, I am far from being the world's biggest Harry Potter fan. I have read only one of the seven books, and I found some of the movies in the series to be rather unmemorable. Visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida and drinking a glass of Butterbeer ranks somewhat low among my idea of an ideal vacation. Perhaps most telling of all, I once took an online Sorting Hat quiz, and it turns out I belong in Slytherin.

Nevertheless, I will be the first to admit that the franchise contains many memorable characters who either join Harry or take the opposite side in the fight between good and evil, and it also contains some profound teachings through them.

One of these is in the fourth book/film, The Goblet of Fire. Following the death of Cedric Diggory, which allowed "actor" Robert Pattinson to go off and star in a far-less memorable movie franchise, Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore tells Harry: “Dark times lie ahead of us, and there will be a time when we must choose between what is easy and what is right.”

As it applies to us muggles, I believe that we are now living in a time in which we face two important choices, and they are certainly choices between what is right and what is easy. The distinction between the two is clear, and the divide will continue to grow as times get even darker.

Remember the friend I posted about here on the Angry White Loner a few months ago—the one who was falling away from his faith and was, not coincidentally, also utterly miserable? The latest Facebook post by this friend, sadly, reflected only more of the same. He now believes that the Christian God is uncaring and unloving. I've offered to help this friend on many occasions and to take him to institute with me, but he refuses to do so and seems to continue to choose to become consumed with vitriol and skepticism.

It's very saddening to watch friends or loved ones fall away from those principles and teachings that would make them truly happy, and unfortunately I've seen it taken place now several times over the years. One of the most disappointing was one of my mission companions, someone who (at that time) once was a positive influence on me and who pushed me to become a better missionary. The saddest part of it all is that these people don't ever seem to end up in a better place but, rather, what Dumbledore would call an "easier" place—one with fewer responsibilities and expectations for themselves but also with less joy and no growth. If there's one who's truly in a better place and I have missed it, I would be happy to be proven wrong. They also, with few exceptions, seem to become the Church's most vile critics and detractors. As President Hinckley once said, "They leave the Church, but they can't leave it alone."

I believe our Heavenly Father truly loves and cares for us and wants to make us happy both temporally and eternally (see Moses 1:39). Sometimes, He has to use tough love to teach us what He wants us to learn, and it's difficult to see so much suffering in a world in which people can be affected so adversely by both other people's choices and natural disasters. But, like any parent, He wants the very best for His children.

That's just the AWL's opinion. And now, off to play LEGO Harry Potter.

Sports Rivalries and the Rameumptom

Once again, folks, it's time for Holy Week.

Or, to describe it more accurately, it's the time of the year when even 50- and 60-year-old men act like bratty teenagers and get into "my dad can beat up your dad" chest-thumping shouting matches with each other over something as trivial as a sporting event.

For those who don't live in Utah or who are not familiar with the phrase, the term Holy Week refers to the seven days leading up to the annual BYU vs. University of Utah football game, which culminates in (usually) a grueling and hard-fought grudge match that leaves the winning team with a great sense of pride and bragging rights and an "in-your-face" smugness and the losing team with a sense of embarrassment and shame that lingers for the next 365 or 366 days. Or longer.

It's all really very silly. It tends to turn otherwise sensible, decent, and good people into raving lunatics and jerks. It can ruin friendships. The rules of good sportsmanship are completely forgotten. And the silliest thing about it all, at least as far as I see it, is that neither team's fans have any control whatsoever over the outcome of the game.

The sore winner's bragging can basically be summed up this way: "The team that I root for beat the team that you root for, and even though neither you nor I have any impact on the result of the game, my association with said winning team makes me, as a result, better than you. It's even better if my team beats yours in a humiliating fashion. In order for me to be happy, we win, and you lose."

The sore loser, meanwhile, finds excuses for his or her team's loss ("it was the referees' fault" or "we had an inexperienced quarterback this year," for example) and berates or makes vulgar gestures toward the other team's fans. He/she will never, ever utter the words: "The better team won today. We will do better next year."

It's most definitely a guy thing, but, over the years, I have seen more than a few females get in on the hype, too. And, of course, it happens on both sides—both those who bleed blue and those who bleed red.

Holy Week reminds me of Chapter 31 in the Book of Alma, in which Alma, Aaron, Ammon, and a few others head out on a mission to Antionum to reclaim the apostate Zoramites and find them praying on top of something called the Rameumptom, which is translated as "the holy stand" (Alma 31:21).

Alma discovers the Zoramites praying: "We believe thou has elected us to be thy holy children . . . and thou hast elected us that we shall be saved, whilst all around us are elected to be cast by thy wrath down to hell; for the which holiness, O God, we thank thee; and we also thank thee that thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren" (Alma 31:16-17).

Fortunately, the gospel is not "win-lose" but "win-win." We are exalted only by humbling ourselves and by helping those around us to be better, just as we try to improve ourselves day by day. In the words of U2 and Bono: "If you want to kiss the sky, better learn how to kneel."

It's okay to love your team and to want them to do well and win. I grew up in a sports-loving family, along with sports-loving parents and four sports-loving brothers who played basketball, football, soccer, softball, and about every other team sport (and a sister who came around when she met her sports-loving husband), and I've known no other way of life. I love it when my teams win and feel bad with them when they lose.

It's also possible to be an enthusiastic sports fan without climbing up on the Rameumptom—in other words, without being a jerk about it.

As Good as It Gets . . . ?

In the movie As Good as It Gets, there is a scene in which the main character, Melvin (Jack Nicholson), himself a sufferer of a severe case of obsessive-compulsive disorder, walks past a support group who are in the middle of a session. Not only cursed with OCD but also someone with a mean streak, he asks them the question, "What if this is as good as it gets?"

Enjoying his little joke, he leaves the room as the members of the support group contemplate this question in a stunned silence. This moment is, of course, where the title of the film also comes from.

Do you ever find yourself contemplating the answer to the same question about matters in your own life: Is this really as good as it gets?

I find myself doing so on many a Sunday, as I feel it's certainly an appropriate day and time for self-introspection. Further, when you ponder upon this question, do you ever find yourself becoming frustrated, despondent, or flat-out heartbroken about the progress you seem to be making—or the lack thereof?

We all have things that we need to work on, be they bad habits to overcome, problems to solve, people who use or abuse, loneliness, or any number of other challenges that don't seem to go away, be they emotional, mental, physical, financial, etc. For many people, it's a combination of one or more of these things.

For the record, I believe that there are two types of people, as well as two ways of dealing with life's problems: There are those who "deal" with their problems by not dealing with them at all—ignoring or avoiding them altogether—aka the truly insane who keep trying the same thing and expecting different results. Then, there are those who confront and fight their problems—even when that fight seems like it may be a losing battle.

Whatever stage you are at in your particular battle(s), I believe that if you are among the latter of these two types of people—the one who is confronting and fighting the problem—then you are winning. That may sound like a cheesy line taken from the end of every "G.I. Joe" cartoon—you know, "knowing is half the battle" and all that—but I believe it to be true. Taking two steps forward and one step backward is still making progress.

On Facebook today, a  friend of mine posted something I originally heard in the October 1999 general conference and also which I have heard many times since. I certainly needed to re-read it again:

“Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”
 -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Sometimes, all we can do is put one foot in front of the other and continue to walk down that road. If we even stop and take a moment to look around us when that road is muddy and the sky is dark and stormy, I think we will even discover that there are quite a number of good things around us already.

Black Holes and Vacuum Cleaners

Over time, I've come to realize the sad truth that some people are, simply put, like black holes and vacuum cleaners.

They just plain suck.

The term suck, in this sense, refers to people who, to paraphrase Bruno Mars, "take, take, take it all but (they) never give." Whatever their motivations may be, they take your time, emotions, goodwill, compliments, money, possessions, etc. and they offer none of their own in return.

Like the lady who, a few years ago, ran past a Yield sign, entered a roundabout I was already in, and collided with my car, they will not only refuse to accept blame for the trouble (in this case, car accidents) they create; they will then turn around and accuse you of being the person who instigated the whole mess.

People who suck are something unfortunately encountered among some supposed friendships. As a result, their behavior tends to be something of a friendship killer. It's also an unfortunate result of some dating experiences - and I think we've all been there at one point or another.

In dating, they are the people who string you along and use you for any number of what amount to be selfish purposes. Dating them is like pumping quarters into a slot machine for hours on end; all the while you dream of some kind of reward or result, but you get bubkes back and end up bankrupt emotionally.

I bring this all up as a result of a conversation I had with a friend the other night. This friend is a mutual friend of someone I went on a few dates with not long ago, and I learned a few things that helped me to understand why this person completely flaked out what I thought was our potential relationship. In a nutshell, someone she had dated earlier, who had acted like an utter tool and whose behavior led to them breaking up, decided he was suddenly interested in her again and wanted to get back together with her. Therefore, even though I had behaved gentlemanly toward her and she had only nice things to say about me, I was dropped like a rock.

I felt, in a word, used. I doubt it was this person's intention to make me feel this way, but that was the effect nonetheless.

Of course, some very good advice was given on this subject 2,000 years ago. The Savior instructed us to "pray for them which despitefully use you" (Matthew 5:28). I know that statement applies in all relationships in which we're adversely affected by people who suck and that it's what I need to do in this case. There's no other sane way to move forward.

It also leads me to reflect whether I have unintentionally ever been a person who sucks, be it in dating or in any other relationship. The AWL has admitted before that he is a work in progress, and if this is the case, he begs for your forgiveness.

At the same time, it doesn't mean we need to keep people who suck around us. What did Nephi and his clan do when Laman and Lemuel had used up all of their opportunities to be good? He put a great deal of (physical) distance between himself and the Lamanites. Though they were his brothers and he still loved them, he could no longer stay around them, or he would perish. He even lived long enough to see wars with them during his lifetime.

Forgive? Absolutely. But forget? Well, that just leads to our being vacuumed up off of the carpet, like so many particles of dirt, again and again.

Schadenfreude (Gesundheit!)

Schadenfreude: "enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others"
 -Merriam-Webster Dictionary

For those not familiar with the term - and, let's be honest, schadenfreude is a fun word to say as well as to type - it comes from the German words schaden, meaning "damage," and freude, which translates as "joy." It is also not to be confused with the infamous Dr. Sigmund Freud, whose name translates roughly as "one of the most boring and difficult writers I've ever had to plod through during my college days."

I was reminded of the concept of schadenfreude over the weekend when I learned that Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, aka Satan's favorite basketball team, suffered a season-ending injury when he tore his Achilles tendon in an NBA game. Not only did it end his season, but it could keep him out of the sport for up to a year.

My initial reaction was basically this: Good! He's a narcissistic jerk, and nobody deserves it more than he does. The Lakers have also been one of the biggest rivals of our hometown squad, the Utah Jazz, and I'll admit that, in the past, I have been somewhat pleased to hear whenever the Lakers have lost a game. They're all big jerks, in fact. So, they all deserve it.

Right? (sound of crickets chirping)

Another, much more local example of schadenfreude, I believe, is present in the BYU/Utah college sports rivalry, which tends to bring out the worst in many people - on both sides of the fence. Both Cougar and Ute fans believe that the other side is full of big jerks, and that justifies my unruly behavior toward them and means that whenever my team beats your team, I, as a follower of that team, am therefore also better than you, and I will rub your face in it whenever I can.

But only during football season. And basketball season - if the (_______) (Cougars/Utes) have a good team this year, that is. Then, we'll see each other at church Sunday, and all will be rainbows, ponies, and cotton candy once again.

Another important part of being a "true" fan (in some people's minds) of either side: Root for the other team to lose, no matter whom they're playing. Not only that, but they must lose by as many points as possible and be humiliated in the process. Victory means "we win, and you lose."

It's Schadenfreude with a capital S.

As someone who grew up as a Cougar fan and who was a Ute scholastically, I try to avoid these kinds of scenarios as much as possible - unavoidable as they may be. Frankly, they're just plain embarrassing. Not only do they bring out the worst in some people, they're really just silly and childish. I've already admitted to my basketball prejudice, so there is another reminder for myself that the same idea applies.

Be patient with me; I'm a work in progress. Odds are, so are you.

Fortunately, in real life, true joy comes from both bettering ourselves and helping others to become better, too. It is win-win, rather than a win-lose, situations that give us happiness and make us grow into better selves. In helping others, we help ourselves in the process.

It all sounds a lot like that whole Sermon on the Mount thing, doesn't it?