Alma's Tao
After talking about diligence and temperance Alma continues giving advice to his Shiblon in verse 11:
First, it reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. One thing he states and tries to teach is that if you want to get something good done it is wiser to get yourself out of the way. To paraphrase, he says that you can get a lot more accomplished if you aren't worried about getting the credit for accomplishing it.
But a second thing comes out of Alma's sentence and that is a matter of focus. When you want something to happen you need to look somewhere for the power to make it happen. If you are full of pride and see accomplishments primarily in terms of your own qualities of wisdom and strength then I think you are focusing on the wrong things. Because nature is much more powerful than you are you should be focusing rather on the way that things outside of you work. Your strength is local and limited. So is your wisdom. But natural laws have amazing power. If you can flow with them and make use of them then perhaps you can really get things done. Now you have something scalable.
So let me give an example: you can use your amazing powers of persuasion to sell a crummy product. You'll make some sales but only as many as you can get to happen by running around and convincing. And hopefully at some point you'll get stuck with your own reputation. Or you can sell something that is excellent enough to knock peoples socks off. In this case you still may need to start off running around finding people with knockable socks. But now, because you are acting in accordance with the way things are, you have a success that can really grow.
See that ye are not lifted up unto pride; yea, see that ye do not boast in your own wisdom, nor of your much strength.I like that verse a lot. One thing interesting about it is how in the last phrase Alma seems to acknowledge that Shiblon has much strength even as he asks him not to boast of it. This morning I was thinking about the verse in terms of how it might help me practically in getting things done. I think there are a couple of ways.
First, it reminds me of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography. One thing he states and tries to teach is that if you want to get something good done it is wiser to get yourself out of the way. To paraphrase, he says that you can get a lot more accomplished if you aren't worried about getting the credit for accomplishing it.
But a second thing comes out of Alma's sentence and that is a matter of focus. When you want something to happen you need to look somewhere for the power to make it happen. If you are full of pride and see accomplishments primarily in terms of your own qualities of wisdom and strength then I think you are focusing on the wrong things. Because nature is much more powerful than you are you should be focusing rather on the way that things outside of you work. Your strength is local and limited. So is your wisdom. But natural laws have amazing power. If you can flow with them and make use of them then perhaps you can really get things done. Now you have something scalable.
So let me give an example: you can use your amazing powers of persuasion to sell a crummy product. You'll make some sales but only as many as you can get to happen by running around and convincing. And hopefully at some point you'll get stuck with your own reputation. Or you can sell something that is excellent enough to knock peoples socks off. In this case you still may need to start off running around finding people with knockable socks. But now, because you are acting in accordance with the way things are, you have a success that can really grow.
posted by Douglas H. at 6:13 AM
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