This hasn't been one of my favorite weeks. I guess you couldn't really say any one terrible thing happened, but there was just a list of "small" annoyances, inconveniences or disappointments that got longer and longer.
I think last night was kind of the peak of this, and at that point I did not want to talk to anyone. I just wanted to sit in my dark bedroom and do nothing. This morning I still carried many of those ill feelings, but they grew softer. I think my episode of sadness dissipated when my dad wanted to go on a picnic lunch. I love going to the canyon in our area, and what made it better, not only was Dad there, but so was my sister and her three sons; my nephews! I love my nephews; they never fail to cheer me up.
As if that wasn't good enough, tonight I went to a comedy show with a couple of friends kind enough to invite me. They didn't know how I was feeling yesterday when they invited me, but tonight we had a blast, and both this event and lunch earlier changed a grossly mediocre week into a pretty good one.
So, I'm led to wonder, what made the difference? I thought, and the answer is obvious: I felt more loved and appreciated as a result of these experiences. Being without a job (working on that!) and not in school means my social time is sparse and valuable. Although these two were the highlights, looking back I am able to see other times that I felt better as I was around others, such as Sunday night I attended the Fireside I posted earlier with a great person, and at a fencing practice my coach made sure to invite me to fence longer than I felt inclined to. It is these social interactions with friends and family we love that make life worth living.
In the Scriptures, often we see the need for some sort of companionship, with marriage being the greatest. In the Book of Genesis, God said after He had created Adam, "It is not good that the man should be alone"(Gen. 2: 18). Think about all the heroes from the Scriptures; I can think of very few that did not have some sort of close friend there. Adam and Eve are the prime examples; not only were they both necessary to create the human family, but Adam could not have borne the trials of mortality alone (could you imagine living for 900+ years on a planet with nobody else?). We also have Abraham and Sariah, Moses and Aaron, Alma and Amulek; even Jesus Christ had His disciples, with Peter, James and John being especially close. I may be incorrect, but I believe even after suffering the Atonement, even after taking our sins upon Him, the only verbal exclamation Christ made in agony was when God left Him, leaving Christ, for the first time, truly alone: "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt. 27: 46).
Loving and being loved are of utmost importance to our happiness. If nobody loves us, what do we matter? But of greater significance, if we love none, what is our purpose in life? I find that any purpose not involving a desire to improve in some way the human race will lead to dismay. I cannot recall who was saying this, but one said recently that our purpose is to have joy, but when that becomes our focus, we never reach it; it is when we lose ourselves in the service of others and our God that we find it. If we focus on ourselves all the time, we will always think of the next step on our path to happiness, which will ironically grow longer and longer because we are always looking for the next step. Meanwhile, if we love others and focus on helping them, and we succeed, we have accomplished much good, and we feel joy as a result of it.
Excuse the tangent; anyways, friends are gifts from God, and families are ordained of God. We all need love; is it a wonder why Christ said the two greatest commandments were to love our God and our neighbors?
Nobody is meant to be alone. We should not try to be the most popular person around, but we all need close relationships. Love is more important to our quality of life than anything else.
So, go hug a friend today! He or she may need it, and you'll feel better along the way.
God bless y'all!
Patrick
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| One of my good friends, Ryan! |
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