The Priesthood Session kicked my butt tonight, and rightfully so. First, Elder Costa underscored the father's responsibility of daily prayer, daily scripture study and FHE. And then Elder Uchtdorf's admonition to not let small things undermine what really matters echoed counsel that my mother-in-law (who is familiar with the basic dynamics of our marriage) gave us just the other day when she quoted Elder Scott: "When I take a small pebble and place it directly in front of my eye, it takes on the appearance of a mighty boulder. It is all I can see. It becomes all-consuming."
This morning's opening address by Elder Hales was as well-stated a message as I'd heard about Mormons and Money. Elder Hales gave me a personal interview and blessing several years ago in preparation for a special assignment I'd been given, and part of his blessing addressed some of my professional concerns, so it's particularly interesting for me to hear him talk of providing for a family and managing incomes. His statement, "Our world is fraught with feelings of entitlement. Some of us feel embarrassed, ashamed, less worthwhile if our family does not have everything the neighbors have. As a result, we go into debt to buy things we can’t afford—and things we do not really need," intertwined with something to which I've given a lot of thought, given that I work in consumer finance here in Utah. I wrote the following to a relative recently, in response to his having called the attention of several family members to a Gallup survey that found Utah to lead the nation in happiness:
>>I'd seen that recently, and wondered whether it might be as a result of our well-known, perennial position atop the list of per capita antidepressant consumers -- popping so much Prozac, we can't help but be happy. Although I'm not sure how to reconcile the happy-go-lucky thing with our high suicide rate -- 11th in the nation. We're #1 in suicides among men 15 - 24. And while I can't find a source, I heard last year --I believe on KSL-- that we were #1 for attempts (although the vast majority fail...apparently, men use more lethal means) among women 18-35.
I think that this may actually tie (loosely or very directly -- I'm not sure) back to our previous exchange about consumerism & materialism -- Among the broader population, yes, "the posts keep moving" - Once we arrive at what we thought we wanted and would "make us happy," we want more. "Yesterday's wants have become today's needs" was a line in Oct Conference, I forget by whom. [Update: Actually, it may not have been Conference. In looking it up, I thought I'd found it in here, but not so. However, the message for Music and the Spoken Word show #4146 on March 1, 2009, included the following: "In some ways, previous generations seemed to understand this remarkably well. Perhaps because some hard lessons forced our ancestors to be more careful with their resources, they were less likely to confuse their 'wants' so easily with their 'needs.' Now it seems that yesterday's wants have become today's needs."]
(Side note: Interestingly, in the Progress Paradox book I mentioned, the author, Easterbrook, says that the fact that so much of our population has arrived at a point of material satiety may be contributing to general depression and disillusionment -- our parents/grandparents associated real hope and satisfaction with the dream and then reality of moving from a cramped apartment and no car, to a three-bedroom home and one car; our modern equivalent (moving from a 3500 sqft home and two cars to a 5000+ mcmansion and three cars + boat) doesn't carry the same fundamental benefits to the psyche, so when we arrive there and feel empty, we feel like the only way to fill up is to keep going for more. Ah, those wily philosophies of men.)
We Mormons have been taught that if we're righteous, we'll "prosper in the land" -- but we don't define prosperity by the basics of healthcare, safety, food, shelter, etc., which the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of our planet's inhabitants still lack to a shocking degree but which the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of Utahans currently enjoy. We define prosperity by what we've allowed Madison Avenue to tell us it means. (And it's not their fault; it's ours, by willingly opening ourselves up to these messages. Advertisers try to "wallpaper our world," but a surprisingly large chunk of it is avoidable, if you really try: Nobody forces us to watch TV or listen to commercial radio or order catalogues, etc.)
The net effect of this may be that the natural human tendency to want to keep up with the Joneses, is now turbocharged with a doctrinally-justified (albeit misconstrued) tie to righteousness: When a self-perceived Good Mormon sees his neighbors get the new car or the timeshare or whatever, he thinks, "Hey, I'M living righteously as well. Why hasn't the Lord 'blessed' me with X Y Z?" And that leads to all kind of funky behavior, like "Maybe it's because I lack faith that the blessings will come... So I'll demonstrate my faith by making the purchase [on credit]..." thereby artificially maintaining the appearance of the righteousness=prosperity link on my own, until the Lord "catches up" with all those yummy blessings I've earned, etc.
For a long time (we've slipped a bit recently), Utah led the nation in both bankruptcies and foreclosures per capita. The sunny side says, "Well, we have bigger families, lower wages relative to real estate costs, and systematically give 10% of our income to charity, so 'of course' there will be more financial stress." A closer look may reveal other factors at work.
Back to the issue of depression and suicide, which may in fact parallel the materialism thing. I've discussed this with several intelligent, "faithful" (much more faithful, middle-road, "iron rodded" than me) people, and my sense is that only the blithe and naïve among us see ZERO connection between these alarming statistics and long-standing, oft-promulgated ideals of "What a Good Mormon Is Like." It's especially taxing on the women, given stronger inclinations toward introspection and peer comparisons. Even though that message seems to have softened in recent years (although it rears itself occasionally, most notably, to my recollection, in the I-can't-believe-that-actually-made-it-through-committee "Perfect Daughters of God" (or whatever it was...that certainly came across as the gist of the message) talk five or so years ago, and the more recent "Mothers Who Know" address, which itself inspired an adamant and organized backlash among, well, Mormon Women, not all of whom, based on their even-handed statements, appear to be Priesthood-envying bra burners (one of the more thought-provoking posts is "She knows that she is just one fully-employed male away from poverty..."), the evidence suggests that its effects--on women who find themselves continually failing against a "be ye therefore the perfect mother, wife, cook, lover, teacher, preparedness expert, doctrinarian, gardener, optimist" standard--suggests that its effects linger--are devastating to the point of clinical depression and worse. (To say nothing of soaring cosmetic surgery instances along the Wasatch Front -- I read something a couple of years back that SLC's per capita concentration of plastic surgeons was surpassed by only by a couple of zips, and Beverly Hills was one of them. I think Holland addressed that recently...which probably made a fair share of GAs' wives squirm.) [Editor's note: Or maybe it's simply because there are too many husbands like me around!]
A naturally "faithful" response to the overwhelming correlative --although admittedly not rock-solidly causal-- signs that Something Is Definitely Wrong, is to say that "after all we can do," the Atonement will bridge the gap from where we are now to the ultimate expected ideal, which, of course, is to be "Even as I Am," and the Comforter will provide succor along the way. If so many people who believe that (Do they not "believe it" enough? not "practice it" enough?) are turning to drugs and suicide as a result of their own perceived failures to attain (or to be moving satisfactorily along the trajectory to attainment), there's a systemic breakdown somewhere along the way.
That's it for my soap box...and for my lunch hour, for that matter. Gotta get back to work so I can slip out a bit early to enjoy what remains of the 25" new Brighton's received in last 48 hrs.
-S
P.S. Unless I misread it, it seemed that the Yahoo! happiness article cited the results not of a study, but of a poll/survey. If that's the case, maybe it's not contradictory at all. Maybe it supports the idea that we feel like we need to put on a happy face (gospel + righteousness = joy) to the outside world, when in fact we're aching inside.
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