Ryanware

Today in church we were reading out of a talk from General Conference called Out of Small Things. In the talk, Michael J. Teh quotes from one of my favorite books by one of favorite authors.

The following advice, given by the deceitful Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, describes a common malady afflicting many of us today: “Do what you will, there is going to be some benevolence, as well as some malice, in your patient’s soul. The great thing is to direct the malice to his immediate neighbours whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. The malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary.”

This idea of benevolence being directed far away and malice being directed close by extends beyond benevolence and malice. When I think of being charitable I often think of donating to some large charity that feeds hungry people in other countries. While that’s incredibly important, I sometimes forget that there are people in my own neighborhood, perhaps even in my own family, who may be starving physically or emotionally. Likewise, I have often thought that to become a great business person or a great friend I need to do something really amazing. When people ask me what I do I want to say I build schools in some third world country or something, as if that’s what it means to be amazing.

Doing good things means you do good things, no matter where it is that you do them. Doing something good starts with your innermost circle of influence. It starts with your family and friends, and then on outward. If you never get to feed thousands and thousands of people? It doesn’t mean you didn’t save the world for someone.

You’ve probably noticed that sometimes, it’s really hard to want to work. You may really struggle with wanting to work on Fridays and Mondays. But then once you start to work you find that work really is, in fact, as painful as you thought it was going to be so you go to the water cooler to drink more water (or just to stand around). Because, if you drink lots of water you’ll eventually have another excuse to postpone working! Whoo hoo!

Why is it hard to start working? Actually, it’s hard to start just about anything.

For example, it’s really hard to start an automobile these days with a hand crank.

Stopping things, on the other hand, is often easier. But it depends on what you’re stopping. I’m told that it’s really easy to stop mowing the lawn to go watch some sports game. Stopping a bad habit though, is hard.

So why are some things hard, and others really easy?

Because continuing what we start is what makes it easy or hard. It’s really easy to stop mowing the lawn to go watch a game because watching the game is easy. If watching the game was hard, we’d keep mowing the lawn.

I wasn’t kidding at all when I said “once you start to work you find that work really is, in fact, as painful as you thought it was going to be.” It’s funny, yes, but it’s funny because it’s true.

It’s easier to change when you have a realistic view of what it actually means to do it; which is to understand that it’s going to be hard and that you’re in it for the long run.

The tasks themselves never become easier, it’s only our ability to perform the tasks that gets better. That sounds like a quote I’ve heard.

So let’s say, for fun, that you’re the Colorado River (see? you can tell this is going to be fun already!). The above picture isn’t of the Colorado River, but it is a river! Anyway, let’s pretend you’re the Colorado River before the Grand Canyon existed. You are looking ahead at your life, not wanting to try to carve out the Grand Canyon because, really, that would be really hard. But, you eventually start and your suspicions are confirmed. It is really hard, but you keep at it. You keep at it for about 6 million years. Is it still hard to carve out the Grand Canyon? Yes. Has your ability to complete the task improved? Yep, you really have no other choice at this point.

So understand that, no matter who you are or where you live, life is going to be hard. Don’t let that hold you back. Who knows, maybe 6 million years from now you’ll be famous too!

Oh one other thing, rivers tend to take the path of least resistance, which means they go off cliffs. And for some reason they are okay with that. But cliffs are not okay for people. Unless of, course, you’re attached to something like this.