I feel like the Spirit has taught me some things, giving me a deeper insight as to the differences between the Mormon Pioneers and ME (and maybe some other members of the church today). At the risk of possibly offending those who pour all their heart and soul into making sure this generation does not forget the Pioneers, I hope I can put my thoughts into the right words--words that will show that while I still have a very deep respect for the early members of the church, some of which were my ancestors, I also have come to understand that too much emphasis on the hardships and trials they endured can actually be destructive to the very foundation that they laid for us.
Let me see if I can explain:
I'll begin by sharing an idea I read in a book called "The 4-Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferriss. He says, "Being overwhelmed is often as unproductive as doing nothing, and is far more unpleasant. Being selective -doing less- is the path of the productive. Focus on the important few and ignore the rest...being busy is a form of laziness--lazy thinking and indiscriminate action"
As I was reading this part of the book, my thoughts turned to the Mormon Pioneers, or rather the belief system that I had created because of having been taught about the pioneer trek to Utah. They spent all of their days in hardship and suffering, and it seemed to me (and maybe I'm not the only one) that I must create a certain type of suffering for myself in order to gain exaltation. Although it wasn't a conscious thought, it was deep within my psyche and was a driving force behind almost everything I did. I would listen to stories about the pioneers or the pilgrims with almost a sense of guilt because my life was so much easier than theirs. In the midst of this guilt, I was forgetting the WHY behind the sacrifices of the pioneers, or of any of our ancestors who dedicated their lives to creating a better world for their posterity. The world they lived in was also very different than ours is today, so of course, they had to work and struggle they way they did in order to survive, but they made the sacrifices they did because of their belief in a promised land. I believe that much of their dedication was to their posterity. They understood that much of what they were pursuing would be realized in an eternal sense--eternal life and happiness was their main goal. For this, I am eternally grateful, and I want to do my part with as much conviction as they did.
I have been on the blessed yet dreaded "pioneer trek," which is a 4 day re-enactment of what we believe the actual trek may have been like. Many Mormon youth groups and family groups endure a pioneer trek in order to gain a greater appreciation and hopefully a stronger testimony of their faith, but to me, there is still no way to comprehend exactly what they went through; I will never be able to compare the stresses of the lives they lived--physically taxing, every part of their existence depending on their ability to provide it for themselves, often fearing for their very lives, but never losing faith or doubting that God was with them--to the mental, emotional, and spiritual stresses of life today. I am not even sure that it is necessary to compare them. I feel it is much more important to know their stories, feel gratitude for all they sacrificed for our sakes, and then be aware and willing to know our part in the plan, which I feel is to build upon the foundation they gave their very lives to lay for us.
Imagine for a minute--how would you feel if your job was to create a foundation for a beautiful mansion, and after you had put your whole heart and soul into making it the very best it could be, the people responsible finishing the mansion just kept rebuilding the foundation because they didn't understand their part of the plan? All of your effort would be for naught. Or in the words of Sterling W Sill in his book entitled The Laws of Success, "Suppose you had a son whom you loved very much and that you surrounded him with every opportunity and all good things...but after all of this opportunity,suppose your son showed himself to be unworthy, unkempt, without education...half starved physically, mentally, and spiritually."
Many people complain about technology, saying that the world has gone to "heck in a hand-basket" and that if we could bring life back to how it was when the pioneers crossed the plains, we would all be better off. (Of course, this is a generalization and a bit of an exaggeration, but you get what I mean.) But revelation tells us that we are to bring the gospel to all of the earth. The pioneers with their covered wagons, having to spend all of their energy just to survive, could in no way find time, energy, or means to do this, even though they did all they could to try. I believe that all of technology is inspired from Heaven for the very purpose of building the Kingdom of God on the earth. Of course Satan is going to take advantage of these advances, but that doesn't make them wrong or bad. I feel like sometimes we try to keep one foot in the pioneer world while the other foot tries to experience this new world we have, but all the while we feel guilty because our ancestors didn't have it so easy. They had to harvest their food, wash their clothes by hand, walk miles to church or school...so we spin our wheels, inventing things that we "have to do" to stay busy to earn our keep. To me, this is when we are letting the foundation AND technology both go to waste because we aren't using either one for what they were intended, and as Tim Ferriss said, it is very "unproductive."
I was raised to work, and to work hard. I am grateful to have been raised this way. I have learned to be self-sufficient and to make things happen for myself. Hard work is that we should remember and incorporate into our lives. But when it comes to the kind of grueling, all consuming labor, and the idea that, unless you are constantly and anxiously engaged, you are lazy and worthless...this idea is something that I have learned is not only wrong but also completely misunderstood. This type of belief system actually makes us lazy, as we are not allowing ourselves to be guided by inspiration as to what we are truly supposed to do, the kinds of inspiration that lead to the actions that will give us abundance in both means and time to really do our part. I am not sure that everyone has felt this way, but for me it was one of the loudest of the silent paradigms that skewed the way I understood life. I fought long and hard before I was able to break through and see that this focus on all consuming hard work is actually getting in the way of the work that I was supposed to be doing. My personal cognitive dissonance started when my finances began to change. The fact that we were now making money even when we were on vacation was "cool" but it really took awhile to feel comfortable with it. Watching Dave become more successful as he spent quiet time in his office, expanding his mind and meditating made me ornery at first because I was "slaving away" with the tedious tasks that were really leading nowhere else than in the same circle I had been traveling for years. Little by little, however, I was able to see that the time spent away from physically exhausting labor was creating the means in time, energy, and finances to actually make a difference in the world. Don't get me wrong, when Dave works, he works HARD--physically, mentally, spiritually--but his work is different in many ways from the typical 9-5 (and beyond) that used to drive our society but now seems to hinder us in many ways.
Another paradigm I had to overcome was one of thinking that having money was a "bad" thing, or maybe more accurately that poverty was something to be glorified and exalted. Again, I'm not discounting frugality or living within our means or learning to be grateful for what we have. In fact, gratitude is a huge key to increasing your means. Instead I'm saying that when we can accept that there is no scarcity in the universe and that God actually wants to bless us with means, that is when we open ourselves to receive. Sterling W Sills puts it this way: "Nature gives us everything in abundance and expects us to manifest that abundance in our lives... Nature is rich, and it was intended that every man, woman, and child should be rich likewise. To be in want is a sin... we must believe in abundance. We must think abundance. We must raise our sights for greater accomplishments and let no thought of failure or limitation enter our minds."
I am positive that the pioneers were not focusing on failure or limitation. It was their very belief in the existence of something better that drove them to do what was their purpose to do. I don't believe t was ever intended for us to focus on their lack but rather their belief that caused them to sacrifice the things that maybe they would rather have enjoyed at that moment for things that they knew they wanted to enjoy forever.
When we are able to free ourselves from the rat race of working hard all the time just to be able to exist in a way that we feel is the norm, we are able to spend our time and our means and our energy in building something better that we can enjoy forever. It is our responsibility in the grand, eternal plan to reach out, to share, to inspire, and to bring hope to people. We can't do that when we work ourselves so hard that we have no energy left to do anything more than waste time doing things that don't matter. Of course money and ease and technology can and does lead to idleness (but we all know that idleness is the devil's workshop, so why would we want to work for him?) The secret is in keeping the vision. The work is different, but the vision, the goal, the mission is the same. We must spend a good amount of time in gaining a personal testimony of that vision and in creating a belief that we can have it all. When we are perfect in this, we are taking the gift the pioneers gave to us with gratitude and giving back to them by finishing the work they started.
So I guess my point is this: in my opinion, the best way to honor our beloved pioneers is to accept the gift they gave us, stop worrying about re-laying the strong and beautiful foundation that they already left for us, and get to work by sharing the vision that they gave us with others. Taking time to study the scriptures AND OTHER GOOD BOOKS that help us to understand our purpose and strengthen our belief ...that is the key.
