Trying to Steer Clear of "An Empty Egocentrism"

THOUGHTS on LESSON #8 

This past weekend, I curled up on my couch with my husband and twin teenage daughters to watch an animated “family movie” which had recently released and boasted positive reviews. For approximately 20 minutes we smiled and laughed and then became stunned with how quickly the storyline veered into murky messages and exemplified exactly the sad observations of the “contemporary social psychologist”  Roy Baumeister who said,

"Morality has become allied with self-interest. It is not simply that people have the right to do what is best for themselves; rather, it has become an almost sacred obligation to do so. The modern message is that what is right and good and valuable to do in life is to focus on yourself, to learn what is inside you, to express and cultivate these inner resources, to do what is best for yourself, and so forth. Many Americans today can no longer accept the idea that love requires sacrificing oneself or making oneself unhappy or doing things that do not (at least eventually) serve one's individual best interests. If a relationship does not bring pleasure, insight, satisfaction, and fulfillment to the self, then it is regarded as wrong, and the individual is justified perhaps even obligated-to end the relationship and find a new, more fulfilling one. According  to today's values, ‘A kind of selfishness is essential to love.’" (Goddard, H.W. Drawing Heaven Into Our Marriage, 2009)

Of course, this movie is fictitious but media can direct or reflect many aspects of our current culture's reality and we are seeing this theme pop up frequently and in the most unexpected places. Dr. H. Wallace Goddard’s commentary is chilling. “When we have tossed sacrifice, obligation, and unselfishness from our contributions to relationships, we have nothing left but an empty egocentrism.” (Goddard, 2009)

I have been pondering the struggling opposition between pride and humility in the context of relationships. The “natural man” in each of us yearns to place our own wants and needs before those of others. Parenthood helps us learn to quickly conquer that tendency to some extent but the nature of marriage can complicate the concept if we get caught up in a quid pro quo mentality and refuse to put our spouse’s wants and needs before our own. I’m not talking about subservience but about benevolence.

This principle brings another movie message to mind but this one is hopeful. In Enchanted April, all the characters begin as miserably self-absorbed but over the course of a month, as they each learn to look outwardly they begin to find the joy that comes from true charity. Selfishness dissipates, friendships emerge, and marriages mend. Lottie Wilkins, a character who has been previously unhappy in her marriage describes the former cause this way. “The important thing is to have lots of love about. I was very stingy with it back home. I used to measure and count it out. I had this obsession with justice, you see. I wouldn't love Mellersh unless he loved me back exactly as much. And as he didn't, neither did I.” Eventually, this character helps all of the others, through kindness and love and her own personal change, see their own follies and begin to make their own positive changes.

Pres. Ezra Taft Benson has said, “Our degree of pride determines how we treat our God and our brothers and sisters” (a term which is being used in a broad religious sense so most emphatically includes our spouses.)  He went on to share that “Christ wants to lift us to where He is” and suggests that one way we can become more humble is to cultivate a desire and the associated actions to lift others as high as or higher than ourselves. (Benson, E.T. Beware of Pride, 1989) I am working on laying aside my own selfish concerns in order to focus on lifting my spouse and children but it's a minute-by-minute, internal struggle that requires constant repenting, reassessment, and incredible vulnerability but I am slowly understanding the ironic joy and fulfillment of finding myself by forgetting myself. In truth, it's an often painful process whereby I am gradually shedding off the natural man and drawing closer to God, which in turn draws me closer to my fellow man.

REMEMBERING EXAMPLES of HUMILITY and SELFLESSNESS

Preparing to begin a youth pioneer memory Trek (our second) -2015

Part of my family participating in a city live nativity - 2015