A NEW YEAR – A NEW ME

‘Little People,’ Joseph Smith said, “are fond of using tools before they are able.” The prophet said these words after having observed the propensity of men to attempt to take upon themselves power and authority while lacking knowledge, skill and understanding of life’s true purposes.

This characteristic manifests itself in the schoolyard game of ‘King of the Hill,’ a game sometimes played by youngsters as they joyfully tumble on a pile of sand, a game which sadly is all too often played for popularity, position and power upon the sand piles of life. This game can only be won by pulling another person down.

It must be one of the world’s most exciting and thrilling games for most never lose their zeal for playing even though the school grounds have long ago been left far behind. We may set new boundaries, we may choose new teams and we may even play on a new sand pile, but the pull of the game seems to constantly intrigue us.

Two young lovers wed and almost immediately start turning their new nest into a sand box where roles, traditions, and procedures are determined by domination or cleverness.

We enter into a vocation and our dream job almost immediately becomes a perpetual growing pile of sand where daily tugging and struggling toward the top overshadows all altruistic desires which were once part of the dream.

Our periods of recreation are dominated by piles of sand which are continually made more daring and frightening where enjoyment is mocked by standardizing and regulating the quest.

We witness our political leaders maximizing their individual importance by throwing sand upon all in their arena as they clamor for a spot of importance upon the pile.

We go to places of worship because we think we find there a pile of sand we believe to be whiter and purer than the dingy pile of our neighbors.

It is a singularly sad state, that the people of the world not only tolerate, but seem to support and heap accolades upon those who become most expert in the real life game of ‘King of the Hill.’ We continually praise those who have clawed their way to the top of the pile by stomping on the lives and reputation all they had to pull down to get to the top of the heap. We cast upon them our meager grains of sand at the ballot box. We melt our meager quantity of sand and mold statues of glass to add to their self-generated loftiness. We change our bits of sand into gold and willingly add it to their mountainous mass.

Is the die so permanently cast that we can never break the chains of competition, can never loose ourselves from the slavery of success by survival, can never look beyond the restraints of relative recognition and, therefore, remain trapped in the game of ‘I can only win because you lose?’

A plan exists, which could become an active revolution, but since it decries the supremacy of the game of ‘King of the Hill,’ it seldom is recognized today as a viable alternative. We can be assured, however, the revolution is active and alive, silently manifesting itself in the lives of individuals who have come to understand how the tools of life are to be used.

TO BE CONTINUED