This last week I was thinking about this lesson I had in church when I was in college. There have been lots of lessons that haven't stuck with with me, but this is one that has.
When I was in college my second year I had a lesson in church about choosing the Lord's standards. The Sister teaching did an object lesson with a string attached to a washer and a cup. She put the string over a pencil and let the cup drop. The washer wrapped the string around the pencil as it was falling and caught the cup, keeping it from hitting the floor.
It's a lesson that I haven't forgotten.
Every time I'm trying to decide whether or not I should really give something up that I think I enjoy, I think about this lesson. I think about what will happen if I don't give it up. Usually the answer is that either nothing will happen, or that it will be to my detriment somehow. I think about how I might miss it if I cut it out of my life (this generally happens with songs that I like, the catchy ones that you realize about the third listen in that they are talking about something completely inappropriate). I am definitely not perfect at it, but I remember this lesson and I usually decide to do what I should.
Because I really don't miss it when it's gone. I'm happier without it. Not necessarily because the act of getting rid of it actually changes who I am, but because there is less dissonance in my heart. I'm much happier being the person that I know that I should be, even if that's the only difference that I notice. I like knowing that if someone were to think of me (because people seem to think I'm a better person than I am), they wouldn't be wrong in thinking that I wouldn't do something, or that I wouldn't listen to or watch something. I like to prove them right, even if I'm the only one who knows it. I know who I'm capable of being, and I want to live up to that.
What's a lesson that you've never forgotten? Why do you think it has stuck with you?
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