The Human Experience

Where there is life, there is hope.

What causes people to hope as they had scarcely allowed themselves to do before? There is a lot of heartache in this worlds experience but hope and faith are what keep people holding on. The instinct to survive and to hope for a better tomorrow is something that everyone feels, something that everyone knows. It is the strength of belief.

I have been thinking a lot lately about human beings and what our experiences here on earth are all about. From a spiritual perspective, I have that figured out. I know that if I endure to the end and live worthily I will return to live with my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again, but what about my experience here on earth will give it the most value, what will allow me to influence as many people as I can and allow them to influence me as well? What sorts of things do I need to understand that will allow me to help guide others to come unto Christ through my example? I guess I just want to utilize my time here on earth in the best way that I can.

I am big on documentaries. I love them. When I was at home about a month ago with my family we watched one called "The Human Experience". In this film, Jeffrey Azize wants to find answers to the question, "What does it mean to be human?". To do this he and his brother spend a week experiencing what it means to be homeless, sleeping on the streets and begging for food included, then they go to Peru and onto Ghana to visit my place, my people...naturally I loved this. They visited leper colonies and spent time with people with AIDS, visit a hospital full of abandoned children etc...while watching them experience these things my mind was racing and I was taking notes like crazy on my phone because it really made me think about life.

-FAMILY:

       Family is the project of the human being. What it is to be loved and where that dignity comes from begins in the home. Our families provide us with our first experiences. Hopefully home and family means a safe space where we rejuvenate and heal. Whether it has been that place of security or if its been a place of insecurity, you want to share your life with them. They are yours. Family is true happiness and a love that you cant explain.

-RELATIONSHIPS:

       What is the human relationship? We're talking true, meaningful relationships here. Now that does not mean that you have to know everything about one another, nor does it mean that you have really influenced one another's lives or even spent a significant amount of time together. Of course, those relationships tend to be the ones we value most in this life; but, I think it is much more than that. The human relationship is about acceptance. It is about loving someone not because of what they do, but because of who they are...thats not to say that people's actions aren't important because they make us who we are...what I mean by this is that really great relationships between human beings all have one thing in common: ACCEPTANCE. Acceptance simply because you are a human being, because you are real. Imperfect just like everybody else, but real.

-LIFE, the ability to choose:

      A human life is an unrepeatable, unprecedented adventure. Every human life. Not one single human being  that has lived and ever will live will experience life the same. We each have unique experiences that shape our worlds out of those experiences. Our lives are a result of the world that has created us yet at the same time the world we live in is one that we have created. When God created the earth he gave us more than enough to spare, it is what it is now because of what we have made of it. Similarly, He gave us life and all the resources we need to survive, but we choose how we use those resources in this life. We live on the earth but choose how we make our world. CHOOSE is the big word here. Over the last few months I have learned the gravity of that word. The power that I have to choose is so much bigger than I had ever realized before. I strongly believe that the Lord has a plan for me and that He will guide me down that path, yet I have the ability to choose to follow it, to follow Him. I was reading an article in the June or July 2013 Ensign about a week ago, I cant recall which one, which was talking about independence saying that "real freedom is best exhibited and experienced by always CHOOSING THE RIGHT. God has given you not only the right to choose between good and evil but also the power to choose good OVER evil." God has given us power to choose; And it is a powerful thing, a powerful choice even. The choices we make determine the lives we live but ultimately we choose. This power to choose places us above Satan and his hosts, we decide, not Satan. With that, there is no room for blame. The only people we can blame for our attitudes and our experiences are ourselves. Of course there are times and people and places who do not have the ability to choose because it has been taken from them through forms of slavery, addiction, imprisonment or whatever, but attitudes are completely our own. No one but you can decide how you feel and how you see a situation. Those choices about how you feel are huge. I have experienced both sides of this in choosing to be miserable and sad and choosing to be happy and let me tell you, happiness is the better choice. And it was as simple as CHOOSING to be happy. It sounds crazy but I really did choose how to feel and it made all the difference. At the same time I had to be making good choices in order to really truly feel that happiness but it works.

-FIND JOY

       I have spent a lot of time outdoors experiencing this beautiful earth and what it has to offer over the last few months and incredible sights are truly something to be experienced and it is hard not to love those things. But, I have made it a point to find joy in the ordinary, in the simplest things and that has made all the difference.