Reset Your Life?

I did computer support for the College of Fine Arts at BYU for four years while I was in college. In my crew were 4-6 other students who would sit in an office 1, 2, or 3 of us at a time waiting for faculty or lab TA's to call us up with some problem with their computer. We'd head over to their office and fix whatever it was that was wrong with their computer. Most of the time it was a simple thing, installing printers, or software, or setting up a new laptop. Once in a while we'd get something more problematic like a virus outbreak, or hardware failure. Many times the problems fixed themselves by the time we showed up, and way too often, the problem was just a computer that had simply been on too long and was so bogged down by open software, unfinished tasks, and used up memory issues, the bugs from countless updates, and other quirks that things had just gotten a little haywire and nothing seemed to be working right.

The best solution in these instances was to usually just restart the computer, let it wipe its slate clean, reset all of it's functions, and just start over. 

Yeah, none of us had any real training. We were all just professional tinkerers.

The other day, my cell phone fell off my lap as I stood up from a chair and it fell smack onto a tile floor, face down. It'd actually been a pretty resilient phone and had survived several drops onto the ground like this one. But when I picked it up, a nice spider-web of cracks covered most of the screen, making it unusable. Doh. I considered replacing the screen, but reviews for the products and processes for doing that weren't real satisfactory, phones were never quite back to original. I'd done it before and experienced the same thing. It wasn't a very expensive phone, fortunately, so after careful consideration and shopping around some more, I ordered a new one of the same kind.

I found an old phone that I reactivated and am using in the mean time. I'd been having issues with that phone before I moved on and now, using it again is reminding me why I ditched it over a year ago. It's slow, doesn't work or respond the way it used to, even after going through resets and wiping it clean. Trying to use that phone again is fine for now, but just not smooth, and there's lots of hiccups.

Like getting a new computer or having to wipe off a virus, starting over on such a personal device is tedious and time consuming. Reloading all your apps, photos, music, preferences and settings, is obnoxious. First-world problems, right?

Ugh!

Like moving homes, its a great time to reassess what do you really need. What's MOST important? It's a great time to de-clutter part of your life and start fresh clean over again.

When I was a young missionary, studying the gospel really deep and taking time every morning to figure out what the scriptures really meant, and there was a passage that I had a hard time understanding. In the middle of an argument between the lawyer Zeezrom and Alma and Amulek (who are essentially on trial for preaching false doctrine) a discussion pops up about the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Alma 12:

24 And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead.

25 Now, if it had not been for the plan of redemption, which was laid from the foundation of the world, there could have been no resurrection of the dead; but there was a plan of redemption laid, which shall bring to pass the resurrection of the dead, of which has been spoken.

26 And now behold, if it were possible that our first parents could have gone forth and partaken of the tree of life they would have been forever miserable, having no preparatory state; and thus the plan of redemption would have been frustrated, and the word of God would have been void, taking none effect.

For the longest time it seemed out of place and a bit weird. Why this off-topic discussion about trees in the Garden of Eden when they were talking about the resurrection. I mean, I get that this life is a preparatory state, but why would it have been so wrong for Adam and Eve to live forever? Isn't that what repentance and the atonement is for?

Later, with experience and age, I came to understand that this life piles lots of haywire stuff on us. Things we can't resolve, substances that harm us, injuries that stick around, relationships that have soured. Our bodies and our minds become old and tired from the clutter of....life. Our bodies and our spirits can't let go of all the baggage we accumulate. Even with the help of the Atonement and daily and weekly repentance, we still accumulate stuff that we don't know how to deal with. We become worn out.

Someone shared this blog post about repentance and understanding. In it the author describes meeting an older member of the church who hadn't been to church in a few decades, her body visibly showing the effects of poor choices, probably only some of which were intentional. Her guilt and shame and embarrassment had gotten the best of her. She refused to come to church and confront her mistakes and her past actions because she was convinced she was just too far gone.

This life is a practice life. It is a chance for us to make mistakes and learn. When I was in dental school, there was an obsession with perfection. The faculty demanded it, and the students broke themselves trying to live up to it. I felt much of this pressure, but I also tried to have fun with it. When I stuck around the practice clinic after hours, trying to perfect my drilling technique on overly soft plastic teeth that showed every. single. mistake. sometimes, it was a nice break to just have fun and carve up a tooth into some funny creative shape or design. What kind of little monster could I turn this tooth into? How well could I write words with this high-speed-drill?

The dreaded "MOD: Mesial, Occlusal, Distal" We called it the "Mother Of Death" in school. Don't  the other teeth!

I remember one lab exercise where we got to use fancy pressure machinery and test how well our fillings stuck to the surface of a tooth with our fancy etches and bonding agents and curing lights. Most students were competing to get the strongest bond strength, using nothing more than the same instructions everyone else was using, fighting for prominence over tenths of MPa's (unit of measure of strength). For whatever reason, I wanted to see what kinds of mistakes would make the bond fail. I knew in the real world I wouldn't be able to test these things out on a live patient, better to figure it out in a lab setting where the results didn't matter so much. I wouldn't etch it quite as long, or not dry the surface quite as much. What about not curing the filling with my blue light quite as long, or too long? What made a difference and what didn't? I definitely didn't win any high-fives from class-mates for having awesome bond strengths, but I learned the limits of what worked and didn't and why. Without just taking a professor's word (which I learned were often...not wrong...but not quite right, either).

We came to this Earth to practice. To get a test run at having a physical body made of concrete matter that could manipulate and control the elements around it, with conscious decisions. Our supernatural spirit has been given this minute and extremely fragile connection with the physical universe and we have been given this lab setting to see what it can do, how to control it, and how to take care of it. We have been given some realm and freedom to abuse it in the process.

To compensate, God has allowed for a Savior and the Atonement which will one day give us a RESET on everything, if we want it.

I've always loved this quote by CS Lewis:

“I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptations. It is not serious provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience et cetera doesn’t get the upper hand. No amountof falls will really undo us if we keep on picking ourselves up each time. We shall of course be very muddy and tattered children by the time we reach home. But the bathrooms are all ready, the towels put out, and the clean clothes are in the airing cupboard. The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give it up. It is when we notice the dirt that God is most present to us: it is the very sign of his presence.”

January 20, 1942

– C.S. Lewis, in a letter to Mary Neylan, 

President Hinckley tells the story of a vision Joseph F Smith had while he was a young missionary in the Hawaiian Islands. In the vision, Joseph finds a wash room and cleans himself off, and puts on a new set of clean clothing. Then this:

Then I rushed to what appeared to be a great opening, or door. I knocked and the door opened, and the man who stood there was the Prophet Joseph Smith. He looked at me a little reprovingly, and the first words he said: ‘Joseph, you are late.’ Yet I took confidence and [replied]:

“‘Yes, but I am clean—I am clean!’

If Adam and Eve had transgressed the way they did, and then eaten of the fruit of the Tree of Life, it would have caused them to have lived forever, stuck in their sins. There is something inherent and connected between this mortal, imperfect life, and the bodies we have with it. If we cannot shed this body through death at some point, we will have to carry the weight of our life with us for eternity. But God has promised us a new body. A perfect, celestialized body, that cannot be tainted or stained.

We know that in this enormous universe of ours, life is extremely precious and rare. How much more rare is the gift of a physical body that is impervious to the chaotic effects and entropy of the universe?

We get a GRAND RESET on our life, if we choose it, and a chance to begin again, having tested so many wonderful things in this laboratory, called Earth.

Yes please

Now, as a disclaimer, I'm not and would never recommend making choices that we KNOW will harm our body and make this life harder than it already is, nor would I ever recommend someone ending their life intentionally in the hope of shedding the despair we pick up here. Part of the lesson we need to learn here is the proper role of life and it's preciousness and awesomeness and respect it accordingly. How could God trust us with an Eternal Life, if we desire to hurt other life for selfish pleasure? But that also said, our bodies are incredibly hard to control and they do a lot of things on their own that our spirits are consciously aware of, but that we don't choose. Learning to keep control of a wild horse is one challenge. Learning to get and keep control over a wild body is another. Let's not judge each other on how well someone else is doing when we are clinging on for dear life ourselves.

My patriarchal blessing basically says I'm gonna live to be old, I tell everyone I'm gonna aim for 120, and if I only make it to 100, I'll still be good. That kind of goal has shifted what I'm focusing on in life, for sure, and how I'm living it now, knowing I'll have to live with myself and others for many more decades.

I will longingly look forward to the day when I can be free of the sorrows and cares of this world and work on my own and help others with their Eternal Progress and growth, but I live with much less fear, knowing that the destruction I cause to myself and others despite my best efforts, will one day be wiped clean and made right. I can move forward motivated by love for others and myself, and less out of fear or worry. I encourage you all to do the same.

There's more stars and planets being made in this "little" nebula of unorganized matter than we can count. How cool is that?