A Cool Little Mormon Trick

[_EAllusion]

Here's the song in question:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWA_jr-AwyA

It's quite catchy and funny with just the right amount of realism.

[Guest]

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[_asbestosman]

How can one "think too much"?

In general? Probably impossible. However, one can worry too much about the future as in anxiety. One can also over-analyze entertainment such as movies / books or even jokes and miss the enjoyment. Thinking too much about details can hinder understanding such as when one becomes stuck on a particular point instead of moving on and coming back later. Often times that point is made clearer later on--at least I find that to be the case with various engineering subjects and projects I have encountered.

Perhaps she means that you are destroying the religious experience by over-analysis much as one does for a movie. However, I also think that one can find deeper meaning and enjoyment from religion by much thought and study. You begin to notice more ties to other thoughts and comprehend the same words from new perspectives. I suspect that Don Bradley has done much thinking about many Mormon issues and can offer many interesting perspectives that would never cross my mind no matter how much I think on my own.

[_zeezrom]

After living with my wife for 10 years, I came to realize I was much better at flipping the switch than she was. She was still worrying about passed (very minor LOL) transgressions from college days and I had turned all that off. While she went to discuss the transgressions with a bishop, I went to get my calling as the YM Pres.

Once you start to believe you are unique in your Mormon sins, you kind of give up - start turning it all off.

[_Buffalo]

Runtu, you have explained something that I have observed for a long time, and it goes hand-in-hand with other LDS behaviours. During high priest group last Sunday I got very loud and obnoxious when the HPGL said that we all fall short of our goals, a sentiment that was agreed to by all in attendance. And it was wrong!

For some reason, the LDS culture loves to feel as though they are in a perpetual state of shortfall. How many times have I heard the phrase, "we are just doing the very best we can possibly do" in a morose, wistful tone? Never content, but unable to express that with which they not content, many LDS have an almost tragic happiness about them.

The ironic part is that the LDS church (well, any church, really) is supposed to be that supportive community, the place where one can come and experience healing, bolstering, uplifting, and hope. The place where one can say, "You know what, I am not happy about this..." and feel some camaraderie. Tragically, a lot of wards have turned into something akin to a beauty contest, where we are all judged by our smiles.

H.

In my life, there were always two conflicting yet equally destructive thoughts going on: You are better than the rest of the world (because of the church), and yet you are not good enough (so you need the church to make you better).

I am convinced I never would have been able to acknowledge or treat my depression had I continued to be active in the church.

Great observation.

[_EAllusion]

I think there is fairly intense pressure in Mormon culture to appear happy and to judge others based on whether they seem happy. I think that's a big part of why Mormons are often stereotyped in pop culture as either having a goofy "aw shucks" cheeriness or, more darkly, a stepford wives quality about them.

For purposes of this thread, I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing. It just is. All cultures do this to one extent or another, but I think Mormons are a high pressure subculture as far as this goes.

Many of the basic happiness surveys are self-report or have a large self-report component. I think those are not helpful when dealing populations that aren't relatively homogenous in cultural pressure to appear happy. I know on boards like this some people love to point out that Mormons score well on happiness and life-satisfaction surveys, but reporting bias looms large.

Interestingly, in terms of national reports of happiness, Cuba is consistently very high. They blow the US out of the water. This is at least on first glance quite odd. Cuba has a lot of poverty and a quasi-totalitarian government that limits freedom, which we tend to think produces unhappiness. I know a lot research went into determining if Cubans were reporting high happiness and life-satisfaction because that's what they were experiencing or if there was cultural pressure in Cuba to appear happy to foreign researchers. That has gone so far as brain scan research. And in the case of Cuba, my understanding is that it turns out those reports are legit. I wonder if anyone has ever gone to the trouble of digging underneath the survey data in the case of Mormons.

[_mentalgymnast]

Interesting thoughts, Runtu. I have seen the effects of repressed feelings of being less than perfect in a close relative of mine. It has impacted their life tremendously.

It is unfortunate.

I remember when my grandmother passed away and we going through some of her "left behinds" I thumbed through a book sitting on the counter. Fascinating Womanhood was the title. Not a church publication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascinating_Womanhood

Some of us that were in the room laughed as I read some of the crazy stuff in that book. Sad thing is, this book was the behavior Bible of many Mormon women back in the sixties and seventies. That book was an influence which resulted in a population of women who if not continually depressed because of their less than perfect stature, were constantly waiting hand and foot on their husbands in order to meet with his approval.

As far as the church is concerned, my thinking is that the church teaches the ideal, at least from their perspective, and we take it from there and apply where we think necessary.

Regards,
MG

[_ajax18]

As LDS Toronto pointed out, perhaps Church should have been like a hospital. But when you're dealing with other people, it's usually going to be giving rather than receiving. So yeah, I've had a similar experience in ways. It took a certain level of inactivity and stepping away from the community to break away from my depression. The Church kind of consumed me and overpowered me with the intense weight of the load. But at the same time, without the basic gospel message one can read in the New Testament, I can't say I'd be very happy or have found much purpose in my life either. But that's something I only found from myself or my own family. That's just how it was for me. A little time alone is often all that some depressed people need.

Even Bobby Marley's reasoning in the song, "Don't worry be happy," seems similar to the Church. "When you worry your face will frown, and that will bring everybody down, don't worry, be happy." So the lesson being, no matter how bad you're hurting, pretend you're happy so as not to upset those around you.