At least for my part, my life comes across as a Kobiashi Maru- the no-win scenario from Star Trek that tests an officer's character. Every time I am forced to choose, it reveals a little more of my character. I don't mind this so much, because I learn things about myself, and sometimes I am pleased to discover virtues in how I act. However, it's a two-edged sword. You see, you cannot tempt or compel a person to virtue like you can to vice. Consequently, it is often the virtuous who get the shaft. I have however identified at least 10 defining moments in my life that forged my character and revealed to me the person that I really am. For the record, they are as follows:
1. The day I first went under the stairs and prayed on my own to my Maker
2. The day I first received an unrequested answer to a prayer and went to the Whitehead's house for refuge
3. Visiting the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, NY
4. Serving as Elder Andreas Wenig's mission companion
5. Becoming the Zone Leader in Tyrolia
6. My marriage to Kim and being divorced
7. Visiting Washington DC
8. Visiting Boston
9. The Sunshine Affair
10. Becoming a Chemistry Professor
The list almost went to eleven, but the eleventh has resolved itself in a way that left me the same.
Each of these gave me an opportunity to see the person I am and learn a lesson about life. Each of these gave me fuel for the idiom I use: Improve when you can; hold your ground when you get there. Each of these were opportunities to practice what I believe, what I preach, and what I was taught, and each of them asked me to back it up or back it off. Some of the details of each of these moments are not things of which I am particularly proud, but there were amazing things in them that really surprised me to learn about myself and what kind of a person I am. Although I didn't necessarily walk away from them with anything other than self-epiphanies, it is empowering to know who you really are.
F Enzio Busche once said that all learning is unproductive unless it leads to truth. We learn all sorts of things about all sorts of things, but like I told my class last night, some people aren't looking for truth as much as they are looking for validation. Defining moments invite us to choose the person we really desire to be. Sometimes, we learn in the moment because we choose to be our best selves, and other times we choose to be a better person because of what happened in that defining moment. After all, there is a true you, no matter how many hats you may wear or how many disguises you may don or how many lies you may handle, and eventually the true you comes through. If not sooner, the true you is a known entity to your creator, and He cannot be fooled by how you act because He knows who you are.
Frequently, I am sad to discover that what I believed was true is an act. It seems that more of us than are willing to admit are thespians, repeating rehearsed lines and painting pleasant pictures to gain some advantage. The advantage is never lasting, because if people discover our deception they frequently treat us worse than if we were our true selves from the start. One thing marriage taught me was that if I was going to be damned anyway, I would be damned for who I really am. Lately, I have prayed for the return of Christ, although I am not really ready to greet Him, because I don't know if I really can be better and because I am at peace with who I am.
Each of us is defined ultimately by the choices that we make. When presented with these defining moments, even if they are not no-win scenarios, they tell others about our true character. Forgive me another of the poems that my grandfather often recited.
My mother says she doesn't care / About the color of my hair, / Or if my eyes are blue or brown, / Or if my nose turns up or down. / She says these things don't matter.
My mother says she doesn't care / If I'm dark or if I'm fair, / If I'm thin or if I'm fat. / She doesn't fret o'er things like that. / She says these things don't matter.
But if I cheat or tell a lie, / Or do mean things to make folks cry, / Or if I'm rude or impolite, / And do not try to do what's right... / Well she says that these things matter.
It isn't looks that makes us great; / It's character that seals our fate. / It's what's within our hearts, you see, / That makes or mars our destiny. / And that's what really matters.
Our character is forged link by link, yard by yard, from the time we are able to choose for ourselves (whether or not others allow us to or let us think we are able) until we die. The evil that men do is oft remembered while the good lies interred with their bones. In my case, this is often because even when I do the right thing, the only thing I seem to reap is the knowledge that I did the right thing. You see, Ludwig von Mises understood me, because he wrote that the virtuous value virtue more than any advantage the alternatives afford even if they seem left holding nothing when it's over. Characters may be remembered for a while, but men of character are held up, venerated, and honored eventually because they did things that really matter.
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