Invisible Barriers

As far back as I can remember, I've always loved listening to talks on tape (and now CD, and internet, but my car still does have a cassette tape deck and I do continue to use it!).

I love hearing people's personal stories, and lessons learned through their own experience.  One story in particular has occupied my thoughts often in the past few months: 

Invisible Barriers

"At a coastal aquarium, a savage Barracuda and a Spanish Mackerel were placed in the same glass aquarium, and in the middle was a glass barrier placed.  Now the Barracuda, in case you don't know, he's ferocious.  And his delicacy is a Spanish Mackerel...

"And when the Spanish Mackerel was dropped in the right side, the Barracuda immediately tried to get at it, and the water bubbled with all of his anxiousness, and he kept hitting the glass barrier.  He kept bruising his nose.

"Now even several hours later he kept, every once in a while, making a big dart at that Spanish Mackerel, and would hit that thing, and just really get hurt.  The Spanish Mackerel stayed over in the corner, buried his nose in the corner and just stayed there.  Well, after a few days, the Barracuda stopped making any attempts, so they took the glass barrier out.

"Seven days later, the Barracuda had yet to try to make an attempt at that Spanish Mackerel.  The Barracuda you see, knew that that glass barrier was there, I mean he had a sore nose to prove it.  He knew that.  But see young people, we too go through life, and we get our nose bruised, and so we know that barrier is there..."

--From a talk by Peter Jeppson, entitled, "Circumstances: Be Thankful for your Troubles."

Isn't that the truth.  As each of our lives unfolds, a pattern of problems presents itself.  Over and over we try and try again, until either we are tired of the pain of failure and give up, or perchance we actually succeed and move on.  I don't know why it is that we must learn the same lessons over and over again.  Sometimes I think I'd like to learn some new lessons!
On second thought, um, knock on wood - I think I'll take that back.  Don't want to tempt fate.

But similar to the above story, in my own life I've often used the following metaphor:

I imagine I go into a restaurant and sit down with a voracious appetite.  A marvelous plate of food is placed in front of me and I lift my fork to dig in.  But every time I lower my fork, the plate is pulled way and I get prongs filled with nothing but air or tabletop!!  Now mind you, this is in a restaurant where it appears that everyone else is happily chowing down.  Other plates are laid in front of me, but all with the same result.  And eventually, no matter how hungry I am, my appetite is lost and I lay my fork down, and push away from the table.  It isn't worth trying anymore, not until I'm certain the plate won't escape me.  But time passes, and a meal appears before me seemingly too good to resist, and I am tantalized into trying again, only to end up with yet another empty fork.  And curse myself for getting suckered anew.

Many times in the midst of repeated trials I've wondered - what is it that I am supposed to be learning from this?  Why am I experiencing this again, what did I not learn the last time?  What other purpose could there be, that I could possibly be missing?  And how am I, by any means, going to find the strength to keep trying if this too fails?

Sometimes the Lord answers my questions immediately, and sometimes the answer is delayed a while, or indefinitely.  And often I wonder if I'm not just creating my own self-fulfilling prophecies, since I expect defeat, and then receive it.  Because after all, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

I don't know how anyone knows when is it time to try again, or when is it time to flip around and do something different.  I really don't know.  I do know that I've discovered in human nature we would often rather risk nothing and be assured of failure, than risk everything and have the possibility of failure.  I thought up that insight a few years ago, but apparently it isn't an original idea of mine - I found a similar sentiment from Harriet Beecher Stowe in Uncle Tom's Cabin, "for so inconsistent is human nature, especially in the ideal, that not to undertake a thing at all seems better than to undertake it and come short."  So how do you know when the barrier finally has been removed, or when the plate won't be whisked away, and when it is worth it to risk trying again??

Hmm, questions, questions.  Here are the answers I found in the scriptures:

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life."  --Proverbs 13:12

"For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;"  --2 Corinthians 4:17

"Know thou... that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."  --Doctrine & Covenants 122:7 

Well, that's grand.  

The answer is:  It will all work out in the end, and someday I'll find out that the meal I finally do get to sink my teeth into was infinitely better than anything I would have settled for along the way.  But meanwhile, it still hurts in the here and now.  It hurts A LOT.

My favorite solution to this (oh so familiar) problem - creative projects.  They give my brain a break and serve as solace for the soul.  And that's the real reason for the money pit.  The house projects have provided me an observable measure of progress in my life, forging my personal link with sanity.

When all the while, what I really want  -  just keeps coming up short.