cultivating gratitude

The following expectations can be happiness killers:

• Life should be fair – It is not. Not at all. Bad things happen to good people all the time for no reason. Expecting you will never have to deal with hardship or difficulties and that you won’t cope when they come is denying the human experience.
• Everyone should like me – They won’t and don’t. Just as you don’t like everyone you know. Instead focus on earning the trust and respect of people you like.
• People should agree with me – Yours may not be the only right answer and being right is not always right. We tend to take others words and behaviour personally when often, it is about them not us. We expect them to think and act just like us and if they don’t, we feel hurt or angry.
• People understand what I am saying – Assumptions, like expectations, can be Happiness Killers. People won’t understand us just because we are talking. Genuinely listening to someone else with empathy creates understanding whilst projecting our own mental filters and world views onto others generates misunderstanding and hurt feelings.
• I must always do well – ‘If I do not attain these goals, if I fail to live up to my expectations, I am a miserable failure and deserve the worst’. This kind of thinking is the basis of self-denigration, self-hatred and compromised self-esteem. You are already enough and are intrinsically worthy irrespective of achievement.
• Things will make me happy – We are poor at predicting what will make us happy in the future. What makes you the happiest? This question from Buddha is difficult to answer. Winning lotto? Getting married? Buying a new car? This hedonic treadmill does not cause happiness as we adapt to our circumstances which become the new normal.
• I can change them – There is one person in this world you can truly change. Yourself and that takes a tremendous amount of effort. The only way that people change is through the desire and wherewithal to change themselves. We can’t and shouldn’t ‘fix’ others.

The antidote to expectations may be cultivating gratitude.

"Expectations – the real happiness killer". HumanPsychology. Accessed on Jan. 26, 2024

their desire for more material possessions

In 1998 I accompanied then-Elder Henry B. Eyring to a large Church meeting in the Utah area now known as Silicon Slopes, a community of great innovation in technology. It was a time of growing prosperity, and Elder Eyring cautioned the Saints about comparing what they had with others and wanting more. I will always remember his promise that as they paid an honest tithe, their desire for more material possessions would diminish. Within two years, the technology bubble burst. Many lost their jobs, and companies struggled during this time of financial adjustment. Those who followed the counsel of Elder Eyring were blessed.

Neil L. Andersen

"Tithing: Opening the Windows of Heaven," General Conference October 2023

thou fool!

The rich man was a fool because he permitted the ends for which he lived to become confused with the means by which he lived.  The economic structure of his life absorbed his destiny. Each of us lives in two realms, the internal and the external. The internal is that realm of spiritual ends expressed in art, literature, morals and religion. The external is that complex of devices, techniques, mechanisms, and instrumentalities by means of which we live. These include the house we live in, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the economic sources we acquire - the material stuff we must have to exist. There is always a danger that we will permit the means by which we live to replace the ends for which we live, the internal to become lost in the external. The rich man was a fool because he failed to keep a line of distinction between means and ends, between structure and destiny. His life was submerged in the rolling waters of his livelihood. This does not mean that the external in our lives is not important. We have both a privilege and a duty to seek the basic material necessities of life. Only an irrelevant religion fails to be concerned about man's economic well-being. Religion at its best realizes that the souls is crushed as long as the body is tortured with hunger pangs and harrowed with the need for shelter. Jesus realized that we need food, clothing, shelter, and economic security. He said in clear and concise terms: "Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of." But Jesus knew that man was more than a dog to be satisfied by a few economic bones. He realized that the internal of a man's life is as significant as the external. So he added, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." The tragedy of the rich man was that he sought the means first, and in the process the ends were swallowed in the means.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 66, 67

they left us the legacy of a good name

The importance of having a good name is spoken of in Proverbs, where we read: “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold” and “The [name] of the just is blessed.”

As I pondered these scriptures and the importance of having a good name, a flood of memories came into my mind about the good name and legacy my parents left my four brothers, my two sisters, and me. My parents did not have the riches of the world, nor did they have silver or gold. Nine of us lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath home with an enclosed back porch, where my sisters slept. When my parents passed away, my brothers and sisters and I gathered to divide their earthly possessions, which were few in number. My mother left a few dresses, some used furniture, and a few other personal items. My father left some carpenter tools, some old hunting rifles, and little else. The only things of any monetary value were a modest home and a small savings account.

Together we wept openly, giving thanks, knowing they had left us something much more precious than silver or gold. They had given us their love and their time. They had often borne testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, which we can now read in their precious journals. Not so much by words but more by their example, they had taught us to work hard, to be honest, and to pay a full tithing. They also engendered a desire to further our education, to serve a mission, and most important, to find an eternal companion, be married in the temple, and endure to the end. Truly they left us the legacy of a good name, for which we shall ever be grateful.



Mervyn B. Arnold, "What Have You Done with My Name?" General Conference October 2010

the decadence of obsolescence

It's an absolute sin to accept the decadence of obsolescence. Why do things get worse? They don't have to. They could get better. We accept that things fall apart, but they don't have to. Things will last forever.


We eat when we're not hungry, drink when we're not thirsty. We buy what we don't need and throw away everything that's useful.

Why sell a man what he wants? Sell him what he doesn't need. Pretend he has eight legs, two stomachs and money to burn.

It's wrong. Wrong! Wrong!



The Mosquito Coast (1986). Screenplay Paul Schrader. Based on a novel by Paul Theroux. Directed by Peter Weir. Starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix.

a can of chocolate-flavored soup

Right now, someone in America is pushing an electric squeezer down a garbage disposal and saying it's busted. Someone else is opening a can of chocolate-flavored soup because the car wouldn't start to eat out. They really wanted a cheeseburger.


The Mosquito Coast (1986). Screenplay Paul Schrader. Based on a novel by Paul Theroux. Directed by Peter Weir. Starring Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren and River Phoenix.

that fabric of inner strength and conviction

Material things do not of themselves produce happiness and satisfaction and the joy of attainment on earth. Nor do they lead us to exaltation. It is nobility of character, that fabric of inner strength and conviction woven from countless righteous decisions, that gives life its direction. A consistent, righteous life produces an inner power and strength that can be permanently resistant to the eroding influence of sin and transgression. Your faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to His commandments will strengthen your character. Your character is a measure of what you are becoming. It is the evidence of how well you are using your time on earth in this period of mortal probation.

“The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” by Richard G. Scott, General Conference October 2010

a precious manifestation of what you are becoming

We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become each day. Righteous character is a precious manifestation of what you are becoming. Righteous character is more valuable than any material object you own, any knowledge you have gained through study, or any goals you have attained no matter how well lauded by mankind. In the next life your righteous character will be evaluated to assess how well you used the privilege of mortality.

“The Transforming Power of Faith and Character,” by Richard G. Scott, General Conference October 2010

meet that truth with his won true stuff

What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valor, rage --  who can tell? --  but truth – thuth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder – the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his won true stuff – with his own inborn strength. Principles? Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags – rags that would fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief.

Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. 1899. Blackwood’s Magazine, p.96, 97

modernization is not beautiful to watch up close

Freeport Indonesia’s activities are just one facet of the broad encroachment of modern civilization on virtually all of the primitive societies of Irian Jaya and, indeed, the world. The consequences are often profound and disturbing. Shortly before he disappeared off the coast of New Guinea in 1961, Michael Rockefeller wrote to his parents about his impressions of the Asmat, a remote tribe living a hundred miles down the south coast from kokonao in the vicinity of the town of Agats:

The Asmat is filled with a kind of tragedy. For many of the villages have reached that point where they are beginning to doubt their own culture and crave things Western. There is everywhere a depressing respect for the white man’s shirt and pants, no matter how tattered and dirty, even though these doubtful symbols of another world seem to hide a proud form and replace a far finer… form of dress… The West thinks in terms of bringing advance and opportunity to such a place. In actuality we bring a cultural bankruptcy that will last for many years… There are no minerals; and not a single cash crop that will grow successfully. Nonetheless, the Asmat like every other corner of the world is being sucked into a world economy and a world culture which insists on economic plenty as a primary ideal.

Even if it were possible, though, there are many grounds for questioning to what extent the local villagers’ way of living should be preserved like that of some endangered species in a wildlife refuge. “Their infant mortality is close to 50%,” says Wyn Coates. “Their food supply is terrible and there is wide malnutrition. Their average lifespan is 35. They are 99% illiterate. Are those the sorts of things you think ought to be preserved?” Many aspects of life in local villages, certainly, are valuable. However, Coates says, “It is hard to change certain things while preserving other things. When you change one thing everything else changes also.” One cannot raise a village’s standard of living by improving nutrition, increasing literacy, teaching residents specialized skills, and helping them organize productive enterprises without upsetting the village’s traditional social and economic structures. “Modernization is not beautiful to watch up close,” Coates sums up. “It is an unsettling, disruptive process.” But for the tribal people of the Irian Jaya mountains, the process, sooner or later, is inevitable.



The Conquest of Copper Mountain by Forbes Wilson. Antheneum. 1981. p.222-224

we become poor temporally and spiritually

Being provident providers, we must keep that most basic commandment, “Thou shalt not covet” (Exodus 20:17). 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. Whenever we do this, we become poor temporally and spiritually. We give away some of our precious, priceless agency and put ourselves in self-imposed servitude. Money we could have used to care for ourselves and others must now be used to pay our debts. What remains is often only enough to meet our most basic physical needs. Living at the subsistence level, we become depressed, our self-worth is affected, and our relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and the Lord are weakened. We do not have the time, energy, or interest to seek spiritual things.


Robert D. Hales, "Becoming Provident Providers: Temporally and Spiritually," Ensign, May 2009

She's gone to Harvey Nichols and gotten sick.

Should have know better.

How she responds to labels

Down into menswear, unrealistically hoping that if anyone might have a Buzz Rickson's it would be Harvey Nichols, their ornate Victorian pile rising like a coral reef opposite Knightsbridge station. Somewhere on the ground floor, in cosmetics, they even have Helena Stonestreet's cucumber mask, Bernard having explained to her how he'd demonstrated his considerable posers of suasion on the HN buyers.

But down here, next to a display of Tommy Hilfiger, it's all started to go sideways on her, the trademark thing. Less warning aura than usual. Some people ingest a single peanut and their head swells like a basketball. When it happens to Cayce, it’s her psyche.

Tommy Hilfiger does it every time, though she'd thought she was safe now. They'd said he'd peaked, in New York. Like Benetton, the name would be around, but the real poison, for her, would have been drawn. It’s something to do with context, here, with not expecting it in London. When it starts, it's pure reaction, like biting down hard on a piece of foil.

A glance to the right and the avalanche lets go. A mountainside of Tommy coming down on her head.

My God, don't they know? This stuff is simulacra of simulacra of simulacra. A diluted tincture of Ralph Lauren, who had himself diluted the glory days of Brooks Brothers, who themselves had stepped on the product of Jermyn Street and Savile Row, flavoring their ready-to-wear with liberal lashings of polo knit and regimental stripes. But Tommy surely is the null point, the black hole. There must be some Tommy Hilfiger event horizon, beyond which it is impossible to be more derivative, more removed from the source, more devoid of soul. Or so she hopes, and doesn't know, but suspects in her heart that this in fact is what accounts for his long ubiquity.

She needs out of this logo-maze, desperately. But the escalator to the street exit will dump her back into Knightsbridge, seeming somehow now more of the same, and she remembers that the street runs down, and always her energy with it, to Sloane Square, another nexus of whatever she suffers these reactions to. Laura Ashley, down there, and that can get ugly.



William Gibson. Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. 2003. p.17

But you have no house and no courtyard to your no-house, he thought. You have no family but a brother who goes to battle tommorrow and you own nothing but the wind and the sun and an empty belly. The wind is small, he thought, and there is no sun. You have four grenades in your pocket but they are only good to through away. You have a carbine on your back but it is only good to give away bullets. You have a message to give away. And you're full of crap that you can give to the earth, he grinned in the dark. You can anoint it also with urine. Everything you have is to give. Thou art a phenomenon of philosophy and an unfortunate man, he told himself and grinned again.


Ernest Hemingway. For Whom the Bell Tolls. New York. Scribner. 1940.

the crowning glory of man

What is the crowning glory of man in this earth so far as his individual achievement is concerned? It is character-character developed through obedience to the laws of life as revealed through the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. Man's chief concern in life should not be the acquiring of gold nor fame nor material possessions. It should not be the development of physical prowess nor of intellectual strength, but his aim, the highest in life, should be the development of a Christlike character.


David O. McKay (1873 – 1970) was the ninth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), serving from 1951 until his death. "Obedience Develops Character," Instructor, Aug. 1965, 301 as quoted in David O. McKay, “The Shape of Character: Classic Insights from President David O. McKay,” Liahona, Sep 2001, 40

is this essential to our survival

Tyler Durden: Do you know what a duvee is?

Narrator: It's a comforter...

Tyler Durden: It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvee is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?

Narrator: ...Consumers?

Tyler Durden: Right. We are consumers. We're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession.


Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perfs. Edward Norton (Narrator), Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden). Film. Art Linson Productions, 1999. Writers. Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay).

Tyler Durden: The things you own end up owning you.


Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perfs. Edward Norton (Narrator), Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden). Film. Art Linson Productions, 1999. Writers. Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay).

Tyler Durden: You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your #@*!* khakis….


Fight Club. Dir. David Fincher. Perfs. Edward Norton (Narrator), Brad Pitt (Tyler Durden). Film. Art Linson Productions, 1999. Writers. Chuck Palahniuk (novel), Jim Uhls (screenplay).