Andrew Clark brought up a powerful concept last night. As humans, we seem to believe that we can earn anything we want to go for if we’re willing to put in the right effort. For a lot of things this holds true, if I want to beat a video game, I can put in enough time an earn my victory. If I want a new computer, I can get a job, work to earn enough money, and purchase it. However, there are at least two things I can think of that we can’t earn, these deal with dating, and the atonement.
First up is dating. Dating can be frustrating. To me, “success” in dating means finding an eternal companion. By that benchmark, thus far I have “failed”. Note that I don’t really mind as much lately, despite my sometimes bothered comments about females. But anyway, it seems like there’s no straightforward route to earn a wife, like there is for buying a car, or becoming a black-belt. If there is a clear way to earn a wife, no one I know knows it. I submit that how to “earn” each different person as an eternal companion is different though, thus the path to success is subjective. Sometimes I feel like “I’ve put in so much effort! Taken out so many people! Isn’t it enough yet?” but feelings like this are based on the mistaken notion that after a set amount of general dating effort I’ll have earned a wife, and this just isn’t true. Which kind of sucks because it removes the predictability out of it. It’s really easy to know when you’ll be able to afford something.
The other interesting point is the false notion of ‘earning’ the atonement/forgiveness. This is probably a problem I have due to my amount of pride. Fully accepting the atonement has a lot to do with humility, and I realize I’m less humble than many, maybe most. But sometimes I feel things like “I have been good for 6 months, so I’ve earned forgiveness!” when I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works at all. Just a thought…
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