This morning, my family had the opportunity to present the Sacrament Meeting program in our church. Elliot and I both spoke, and Esme and Auden sang "Teach Me To Walk In the Light" with me. This is the talk I wrote for the occasion.
In March of 2004, the New Yorker magazine contained an article entitled “Select All” by Christopher Caldwell. It made such an impact on me that I tore the article from the magazine and saved it in a file so I could pull it out on a future occasion such as this.
The thesis of the article is that people are terrible at making choices. In fact, we can be paralyzed by having too many choices. “People don’t know what they want,” states the article. “The prospect of deciding often causes not just jitters but something like anguish.” Psychological studies support this claim: in one study, shoppers who were offered free samples of six different jams were more likely to buy one that shoppers who were offered free samples of twenty-four different jams. The result seems irrational -- surely you’re more likely to find something you like from a range four times as large -- but paralyzed decisionmakers can be replicated in a variety of social studies. Another example: Students who are offered six topics they can write about for extra credit are more likely to write a paper than students who are offered thirty topics.
I am sure many of you can relate to this paralysis on a daily level: in our consumer culture, we are bombared with so many different brands and choices -- Do I get the sugar free? The trans fat free? The caffiene free? The organic? The free range? -- that sometimes we just walk away without purchasing anything at all because the weight of the decision seems more trouble than its worth. Is this real freedom?
This idea -- the idea that we can be paralyzed by having too many choices -- hit me as a divine truth when I read this article in 2004. For years, I had felt confused and torn by my inability to pick a clear path for my life. I seemed to have the world at my fingertips and I couldn’t understand why that didn’t make me happier. I really just wanted someone to tell me what to do!
In 2004, I was married and had recently had my first child. I had gone to Yale for college, where I had repeatedly been told I could be anything I wanted to be. I felt the pressure of expectation. I was a leader of tomorrow. I was going to do something great with my life, and I was given every tool possible to make that happen: amazing classmates, professors, study opportunities. My parents also contributed to filling my well to the brim: as an only child growing up in New York City, I traveled extensively, went to the best schools, saw the best art, and had the best teachers. If I wanted to study ballet, I went to New York City Ballet’s school. As a pianist, I attended the Juiliard School. New York kids are brought up to know just how great their world is.
I absolutely loved my childhood. And I’m not just saying that because my mom is sitting in the first row! It was an enchanted way to grow up. But when I was finally turned out on my own, I felt an intense burden to do something amazing. After all, I’d had all these amazing resources poured into me. But there were so many things I could do, so many paths! I love music -- should I make that my life’s pursuit? I was an English major in college -- should I write? I was interested in business -- how about trying out a job in marketing? In 2004, I had just had my first baby. Should I stay home with her (which I was not good at!) or keep doing a job I am good at? I was so confused and disheartened. I wished I had a lighthouse steering me through the night, pointing me in the direction I should take my life. I wanted my options to be limited so it would be easier to choose a path.
I was paralyzed by choices. On the surface, it seems like such a wonderful problem to have! I can do so many things! I can be whoever I want to be! But this is the very irrationality pointed out in the article: these choices, whether they be what kind of jam to buy or which life path to take, can create real anguish in the person doing the choosing. As the New Yorker article states, “The paradox of choice is not limited to the shopping aisle. It helps explain why so many people at age thirty are still flailing about, trying to choose a career -- and why so many marriageable singles wind up alone. You await a spouse who combines the kindness of your mom, the wit of the smartest person you met in grad school, and the looks of someone you dated in 1983 (as she was in 1983)... and you wind up spending middle age by yourself, watching the Sports Channel at 2AM in a studio apartment strewn with pizza boxes.”
So what does this image of this poor single guy have to do with the Gospel? The “paradox of choice” is one of the most powerful tools Satan has to lure us away from obeying the commandments of God here on the earth. It is the very essence of Satan’s plan: convince us that God’s commandments are confining, stifling, limiting to our happiness. Convince us that if we had no obligations, if there were no commandments, that we would be free, that we would be happier, that we could allow ourselves to be who we really are, not what God’s narrow rules tell us to be. Commandments are a buzz kill! They put us in a box! Choosing from twenty four different types of jams is so much more liberating than choosing from six types! In other words, the devil tries to conjure within us the anguish we feel having to choose from twenty-four different types of jam, in, of course, a more infinite and existential paradigm.
We talk so much in the Church about studying the character of Christ so that we can be more like Him. But what about studying the character of Satan so that we can better understand how he can affect us and work on us? One of the great truisms in the study of English literature is that the character of Satan is the most interesting character in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost, and one of the first well-rounded characters in modern literature. What if we apply a character study to Satan as he appears in the scriptures? What do we learn? The character of Satan appears two significant times in the Bible and both times Satan evokes the paradox of choice to try to get his subjects to bend to his will.
Let’s look at the first instance. In his interaction with Eve in the Garden of Eden, Satan tempts Eve with a question that assumes more is always better. In Genesis 3 we read: “Now the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” As Camille Fronk Olson states in her book, Women of the Old Testament, “Satan suggests that a restriction from God means He is withholding valuable opportunities. A loving God would certainly allow His children access to every experience. Satan tries to convince Eve that God selfishly withholds blessings and power by not giving us unconditional access to every option at all times.” In essence, Satan tells Eve, “What sort of loving God withholds choices? Being able to choose from every tree in the garden will make you happier!”
Satan proves himself to be a one trick pony when he returns to the narrative in the New Testament. Before Jesus begins His ministry, we read in Matthew chapter 4 that He goes up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. “And again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto Jesus, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” It seems that the very definition of temptation is to be offered something outside our realm of righteous choices, something that we think God would let us have if He really loved us, but that He withholds from us because He is irrational, unjust or just plain fickle. In other words, more is always better.
The scriptures teach us an entirely different lesson, however. One of the central tenants of the gospel is that commandments make us free, not in the sense that Satan offers freedom, but in the sense that Nephi specifies: We are free to choose liberty and eternal life, or to choose captivity and death. Just as having too many choices in the supermarket can lead to greater confusion and indecision, having no guidelines in our earthly agency can lead to spiritual confusion. Nephi further explains the purpose of limitations: “If ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness.” (2 Nephi 2:12) The Lord states it most succinctly in Doctrine and Covenants 98: 8 when He says, “The law maketh you free.”
Since 2004, I have continued to be fascinated by this idea that humans are paradoxically made more unhappy given a wider range of choices. Popular culture and psychology seem to be confirming an irrational conclusion that both my personal experience and the scriptures teach me is a true principle: hitching our wagons to the Lord’s predetermined set of commandments can provide the happiest and safest path through life.
This principle has given me great comfort as I’ve spent most of my life in places that celebrate unbridled choice as the greatest indicator of liberty. My allegiance to commandments that seem to some to be arcane and outdated is puzzling to many of my peers. Exploring self, being true to self, honoring self is the religion of the day. In this religion, I should be asking myself questions like, Why shouldn’t I drink coffee if I want to? Why shouldn’t I leave my marriage if I’m no longer happy? Why shouldn’t I celebrate each person’s right to live how and with whom they want? If God loved me, wouldn’t He let me experience anything I want and choose any path I want? In the last General Conference, Elder Oaks pointedly addressed this erroneous thought process: “The effect of God’s commandment and laws is not changed to accommodate popular behavior or desires. If anyone thinks that godly or parental love for an individual grants the loved one license to disobey the law, he or she does not understand either love or law.”
I have sometimes felt lonely declaring the paradox of choice in the way I live my life, declaring that I am happier not having every lifestyle, experiment and experience open to me. But I can point to specific instances when fewer choices have led me to greater happiness. For example, my LDS friends didn’t understand my choice to go to Yale in respect to my limited dating opportunities: I had a dozen eligible LDS boys to date as opposed to the tens of thousands on the BYU campus. My non-LDS friends didn’t understand why I’d limit myself to only dating LDS boys. But one of those dozen LDS boys was the right one and deciding who to marry was one of the easiest choices I’ve ever made in my life.
On the other hand, followers of the Gospel have the responsibility to balance the commandments’ narrowed choices with the role of personal revelation and free agency in our lives. As followers of commandments, we can run the risk of becoming too afraid of choice. We become so concerned with following the letter of the law that we forget the spirit of the law. We confuse cultural expectation with doctrinal demands. Our lives can be equally confusing and disappointing if we tune out our own passions, talents, interests, drives and whisperings of personal revelation for uncontemplated conformity.
The Lord addresses this need for balance in Doctrine and Covenants 58:26 when he says, “For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.” The Lord doesn’t want blind obedience. Each of us has a specific life mission and purpose that is not cookie cutter. We need to be understanding and supportive of each other as we explore the possibilities for our lives. None of us would be here if Eve had not consciously and thoughtfully chosen to forge her own way. The scriptures repeatedly offer examples of people who make isolated choices outside of the prescribed righteous guidelines they profess to follow: Eve of course, but also Nephi killing Laban, the Israelites forcefully invading Canaan, Abraham sleeping with Hagar to have a child. Being flexible to a point seems to be a hallmark of exercising free agency. One of my friends bucked cultural pressure and turned down the perfect marriage proposal at age 20 to pursue her interest in African anthropology. She is now an award-winning scholar, married and pregnant with her first child. Sometimes flexibility is forced upon us: June’s first baby died and she healed by diving headfirst into her professional work. She is now a worldwide expert in her field. Finding that balance between following commandments and making our own choices is one of the most intricate lessons we can glean from this life.
I recognize that I still have a long way to go to fully understand the Lord’s purpose for me and the lessons He wants me to learn in this life. But I have already come to the conclusion that staying close to the Savior is the only way we can avoid swinging to one extreme or another in this life. Neither hoarding choices in pure selfishness or abandoning choice in unconsidered conformity are paths the Savior would have us follow. Instead, He serves as the great equalizer, the great mediator between two extremes. We can find balance between following the straight and narrow path and being true to ourselves if we more fully understand the love the Savior has for each of us and His desire that we become skilled in this essential life art of making wise choices.
In March of 2004, the New Yorker magazine contained an article entitled “Select All” by Christopher Caldwell. It made such an impact on me that I tore the article from the magazine and saved it in a file so I could pull it out on a future occasion such as this.
The thesis of the article is that people are terrible at making choices. In fact, we can be paralyzed by having too many choices. “People don’t know what they want,” states the article. “The prospect of deciding often causes not just jitters but something like anguish.” Psychological studies support this claim: in one study, shoppers who were offered free samples of six different jams were more likely to buy one that shoppers who were offered free samples of twenty-four different jams. The result seems irrational -- surely you’re more likely to find something you like from a range four times as large -- but paralyzed decisionmakers can be replicated in a variety of social studies. Another example: Students who are offered six topics they can write about for extra credit are more likely to write a paper than students who are offered thirty topics.
I am sure many of you can relate to this paralysis on a daily level: in our consumer culture, we are bombared with so many different brands and choices -- Do I get the sugar free? The trans fat free? The caffiene free? The organic? The free range? -- that sometimes we just walk away without purchasing anything at all because the weight of the decision seems more trouble than its worth. Is this real freedom?
This idea -- the idea that we can be paralyzed by having too many choices -- hit me as a divine truth when I read this article in 2004. For years, I had felt confused and torn by my inability to pick a clear path for my life. I seemed to have the world at my fingertips and I couldn’t understand why that didn’t make me happier. I really just wanted someone to tell me what to do!
In 2004, I was married and had recently had my first child. I had gone to Yale for college, where I had repeatedly been told I could be anything I wanted to be. I felt the pressure of expectation. I was a leader of tomorrow. I was going to do something great with my life, and I was given every tool possible to make that happen: amazing classmates, professors, study opportunities. My parents also contributed to filling my well to the brim: as an only child growing up in New York City, I traveled extensively, went to the best schools, saw the best art, and had the best teachers. If I wanted to study ballet, I went to New York City Ballet’s school. As a pianist, I attended the Juiliard School. New York kids are brought up to know just how great their world is.
I absolutely loved my childhood. And I’m not just saying that because my mom is sitting in the first row! It was an enchanted way to grow up. But when I was finally turned out on my own, I felt an intense burden to do something amazing. After all, I’d had all these amazing resources poured into me. But there were so many things I could do, so many paths! I love music -- should I make that my life’s pursuit? I was an English major in college -- should I write? I was interested in business -- how about trying out a job in marketing? In 2004, I had just had my first baby. Should I stay home with her (which I was not good at!) or keep doing a job I am good at? I was so confused and disheartened. I wished I had a lighthouse steering me through the night, pointing me in the direction I should take my life. I wanted my options to be limited so it would be easier to choose a path.
I was paralyzed by choices. On the surface, it seems like such a wonderful problem to have! I can do so many things! I can be whoever I want to be! But this is the very irrationality pointed out in the article: these choices, whether they be what kind of jam to buy or which life path to take, can create real anguish in the person doing the choosing. As the New Yorker article states, “The paradox of choice is not limited to the shopping aisle. It helps explain why so many people at age thirty are still flailing about, trying to choose a career -- and why so many marriageable singles wind up alone. You await a spouse who combines the kindness of your mom, the wit of the smartest person you met in grad school, and the looks of someone you dated in 1983 (as she was in 1983)... and you wind up spending middle age by yourself, watching the Sports Channel at 2AM in a studio apartment strewn with pizza boxes.”
So what does this image of this poor single guy have to do with the Gospel? The “paradox of choice” is one of the most powerful tools Satan has to lure us away from obeying the commandments of God here on the earth. It is the very essence of Satan’s plan: convince us that God’s commandments are confining, stifling, limiting to our happiness. Convince us that if we had no obligations, if there were no commandments, that we would be free, that we would be happier, that we could allow ourselves to be who we really are, not what God’s narrow rules tell us to be. Commandments are a buzz kill! They put us in a box! Choosing from twenty four different types of jams is so much more liberating than choosing from six types! In other words, the devil tries to conjure within us the anguish we feel having to choose from twenty-four different types of jam, in, of course, a more infinite and existential paradigm.
We talk so much in the Church about studying the character of Christ so that we can be more like Him. But what about studying the character of Satan so that we can better understand how he can affect us and work on us? One of the great truisms in the study of English literature is that the character of Satan is the most interesting character in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost, and one of the first well-rounded characters in modern literature. What if we apply a character study to Satan as he appears in the scriptures? What do we learn? The character of Satan appears two significant times in the Bible and both times Satan evokes the paradox of choice to try to get his subjects to bend to his will.
Let’s look at the first instance. In his interaction with Eve in the Garden of Eden, Satan tempts Eve with a question that assumes more is always better. In Genesis 3 we read: “Now the serpent said unto the woman, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” As Camille Fronk Olson states in her book, Women of the Old Testament, “Satan suggests that a restriction from God means He is withholding valuable opportunities. A loving God would certainly allow His children access to every experience. Satan tries to convince Eve that God selfishly withholds blessings and power by not giving us unconditional access to every option at all times.” In essence, Satan tells Eve, “What sort of loving God withholds choices? Being able to choose from every tree in the garden will make you happier!”
Satan proves himself to be a one trick pony when he returns to the narrative in the New Testament. Before Jesus begins His ministry, we read in Matthew chapter 4 that He goes up into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. “And again the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto Jesus, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” It seems that the very definition of temptation is to be offered something outside our realm of righteous choices, something that we think God would let us have if He really loved us, but that He withholds from us because He is irrational, unjust or just plain fickle. In other words, more is always better.
The scriptures teach us an entirely different lesson, however. One of the central tenants of the gospel is that commandments make us free, not in the sense that Satan offers freedom, but in the sense that Nephi specifies: We are free to choose liberty and eternal life, or to choose captivity and death. Just as having too many choices in the supermarket can lead to greater confusion and indecision, having no guidelines in our earthly agency can lead to spiritual confusion. Nephi further explains the purpose of limitations: “If ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness.” (2 Nephi 2:12) The Lord states it most succinctly in Doctrine and Covenants 98: 8 when He says, “The law maketh you free.”
Since 2004, I have continued to be fascinated by this idea that humans are paradoxically made more unhappy given a wider range of choices. Popular culture and psychology seem to be confirming an irrational conclusion that both my personal experience and the scriptures teach me is a true principle: hitching our wagons to the Lord’s predetermined set of commandments can provide the happiest and safest path through life.
This principle has given me great comfort as I’ve spent most of my life in places that celebrate unbridled choice as the greatest indicator of liberty. My allegiance to commandments that seem to some to be arcane and outdated is puzzling to many of my peers. Exploring self, being true to self, honoring self is the religion of the day. In this religion, I should be asking myself questions like, Why shouldn’t I drink coffee if I want to? Why shouldn’t I leave my marriage if I’m no longer happy? Why shouldn’t I celebrate each person’s right to live how and with whom they want? If God loved me, wouldn’t He let me experience anything I want and choose any path I want? In the last General Conference, Elder Oaks pointedly addressed this erroneous thought process: “The effect of God’s commandment and laws is not changed to accommodate popular behavior or desires. If anyone thinks that godly or parental love for an individual grants the loved one license to disobey the law, he or she does not understand either love or law.”
I have sometimes felt lonely declaring the paradox of choice in the way I live my life, declaring that I am happier not having every lifestyle, experiment and experience open to me. But I can point to specific instances when fewer choices have led me to greater happiness. For example, my LDS friends didn’t understand my choice to go to Yale in respect to my limited dating opportunities: I had a dozen eligible LDS boys to date as opposed to the tens of thousands on the BYU campus. My non-LDS friends didn’t understand why I’d limit myself to only dating LDS boys. But one of those dozen LDS boys was the right one and deciding who to marry was one of the easiest choices I’ve ever made in my life.
On the other hand, followers of the Gospel have the responsibility to balance the commandments’ narrowed choices with the role of personal revelation and free agency in our lives. As followers of commandments, we can run the risk of becoming too afraid of choice. We become so concerned with following the letter of the law that we forget the spirit of the law. We confuse cultural expectation with doctrinal demands. Our lives can be equally confusing and disappointing if we tune out our own passions, talents, interests, drives and whisperings of personal revelation for uncontemplated conformity.
The Lord addresses this need for balance in Doctrine and Covenants 58:26 when he says, “For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.” The Lord doesn’t want blind obedience. Each of us has a specific life mission and purpose that is not cookie cutter. We need to be understanding and supportive of each other as we explore the possibilities for our lives. None of us would be here if Eve had not consciously and thoughtfully chosen to forge her own way. The scriptures repeatedly offer examples of people who make isolated choices outside of the prescribed righteous guidelines they profess to follow: Eve of course, but also Nephi killing Laban, the Israelites forcefully invading Canaan, Abraham sleeping with Hagar to have a child. Being flexible to a point seems to be a hallmark of exercising free agency. One of my friends bucked cultural pressure and turned down the perfect marriage proposal at age 20 to pursue her interest in African anthropology. She is now an award-winning scholar, married and pregnant with her first child. Sometimes flexibility is forced upon us: June’s first baby died and she healed by diving headfirst into her professional work. She is now a worldwide expert in her field. Finding that balance between following commandments and making our own choices is one of the most intricate lessons we can glean from this life.
I recognize that I still have a long way to go to fully understand the Lord’s purpose for me and the lessons He wants me to learn in this life. But I have already come to the conclusion that staying close to the Savior is the only way we can avoid swinging to one extreme or another in this life. Neither hoarding choices in pure selfishness or abandoning choice in unconsidered conformity are paths the Savior would have us follow. Instead, He serves as the great equalizer, the great mediator between two extremes. We can find balance between following the straight and narrow path and being true to ourselves if we more fully understand the love the Savior has for each of us and His desire that we become skilled in this essential life art of making wise choices.
You can find Neylan's husband's talk from the same meeting here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYTiv1rSI7p_ZGdna3RmOG1fODVjdHhxbnNkbg&hl=en
Posted by: Elliot Smith | November 24, 2009 at 01:50 PM