Freebies

This post is tied to media somewhat, but it may be hard for you to see that tie right away. Be patient.

So, once upon a time there was a boy named Jason. He volunteered to help man a booth for a little while that was set up to advertise the Stand for the Family Symposium and help register students to go. Whoever was in charge of the booth earlier in the day had bought doughnut holes to allure students or something. Jason was aghast at what happened during his short tenure at the booth. Students would pass by and grab doughnut holes without a second thought. It was "free" to them and therefore fair game to anyone and everyone. It seemed like the passers-by felt they needed to get some doughnut holes before others ate them all. Some students simply grabbed them in stride as they passed and a few others, stopped quickly, asked if they could have some doughnut holes and then scampered away as soon as they had the treasure in their hands. This happened intermittently over the course of probably half an hour or so. Jason could not believe what was happening right before his eyes. It really was shocking, astounding, eye opening, and surprising to him. The most amusing doughnut-hole snatcher came up and asked if he could have some doughnut holes. Jason didn't answer him. Instead, Jason simply asked the student if he had heard of the symposium before. Since the student had no idea what the symposium was, Jason proceeded to describe briefly some of the highlights of the symposium. After about ten seconds the student was becoming very antsy, but listened politely. After Jason realized this student could care less about the symposium, Jason decided to save the student from having to stand and listen any longer. The student was visibly relieved, scooped up the last few doughnut holes and merrily went on his way. Jason couldn't help thinking of the word "entitlement" over and over again during this experience.

In defense of the students, unbeknowdst to Jason at the time, there was a sign somewhere at a different booth that said there were free doughnuts at our booth. This advertisement was half true.

The reason I think this story ties to media is because I think advertising through media has created this attitude where people are fine with, and even sometimes feel entitled to, receiving something for nothing. At the BYU men's basketball game halftime today there must have been three or four games at halftime in which the winner got some free item like an i-pod. Advertisements seem to be saturated with this "FREE!" message. If you buy this you could win a million dollars. If you listen to this, you could win this ridiculous prize that you did nothing to receive. My favorite (or rather least favorite) is the jewelry store billboard next to the gas station by campus on the corner of 800 North and 700 East that says something about if it snows then your purchase is "on us". I don't know the details, but it sounds ridiculous to me. Is the allurement of receiving something free so persuasive as to influence purchasing that much?

In talking about these ideas with my wife, she had a good suggestion in regards to the free hot chocolate BYUSA gives out. She felt like it would be much more beneficial to make receiving hot chocolate conditional on something simple like doing something nice for someboday that day that you wouldn't normally do. If this was the condition, most students may not remember to do that, but probably a handful would, and that handful could make a difference. I think it would cut down on the entitlement our culture seems to be breeding.

Since the experience with the doughnut holes I have been more conscious of my own "entitlement" to free things or services. Really I think it's more commonly discussed as "ingratitude." I am realizing how ungrateful I am sometimes. We just expect certain things to be done for us, or be given to us without thinking twice about the work, time, effort or money put into it by another. This can include good grades in school, a holiday bonus from work, financial support from home, having our church leader spend time counseling us, amongst many other things.

Whew, that was pretty long.

Mormon Message Ritual

For a year or so I have had Sunday morning meetings before the regular church block. I haven't been disciplined enough to go to bed the night before at an earyl enough time so that I could wake up the next morning with time to study my scriptures before my meetings. If I tried that, I would probably have been falling asleep reading my scriptures because I went to bed pretty late. However, to help my Sunday mornings still have a little bit of Sabbath morning feel I started watching Mormon Messages as I eat breakfast on Sunday mornings. Mormon Messages are little YouTube videos the church has created that teach gospel principles, often in story form, in only a couple of minutes. Often there will be music or words of general authorities in the background as the video follows a short story line.

This has become my little personal ritual. It's early enough that my wife is sleeping and its still and silent outside. I have come to look forward to finding what new video they have posted and what it motivates me to change in my life.

Noodle

I'm taking Hebrew 101 this semester and for that class I had to watch this Hebrew movie called "Noodle" with a group of students taking Hebrew. It's about a pair of adult Israeli sisters who have a strange turn of events in their life and find themselves taking care of a 6-year old immigrant Chinese boy whom they cannot communicate with. They speak Hebrew and he speaks Chinese. This boy's mom has been deported back to China and the sisters are trying to figure out how to reunite this boy with his mother.

This movie jerks your emotions in every which way. I think I probably felt sad, scared, confused, amused, frustrated, repulsed, exasperated, joyful and probably several other emotions throughout the course of this movie. It was definitely captivating and very dramatic. There were so many twists and surprises regarding the relationships in the movie. The relationships were so mixed up that it was a little much though. I think Israeli culture may have a little more liberal view of marriage relationships or something than we do.

Right after this movie I had to run to an intramural racquetball game. My wife and I are doubles partners and I had had one of those crazy days where I was scrambling to finish a paper for another class in between all of my classes so my brain didn't stop running 100 miles per hour all day. By the time I was at the RB to play racquetball, I felt like I needed some time to unwind or something from the movie. The movie had been so tense and dramatic that my mind just felt busy. It made me think about the power movies have on emotion. I think I am extra sensitive to it or something, but it was hard for me to transition to talking to my wife and playing a racquetball game. I think sometimes people are drawn to movies that elicit emotions that fill a hole in their lives. It's like trying to find fulfillment through some pretended medium.

Reading #2

More recently I have not read many books other than textbooks. However, one book, not a textbook, that I read for the class Religion in the Home was called Making God Real in the Orthodox Christian Home. It was a pretty simple book written by an Orthodox Christian priest about ways to practice religion in your home as a family. I’m really interested in other religions anyways and to read and learn about another religious tradition specifically as practiced ideally in the home was fascinating to me. It was salient. It made me think of ways that I want religion to be practiced in my family’s home and motivated me to be better about making sure it happens little by little now even before my wife and I have children. The book, and more specifically the class, made me think about different career fields that I had not considered pursuing before.

Reading

As an elementary school student I read a lot—The Boxcar Children, The Hardy Boys, The Work and the Glory, you name it and I read it. My brothers used to tease me because even though I really liked to play sports and was generally pretty good at them, I often preferred to read a book in my bedroom by myself rather than go outside to play. Sometimes when people would interrupt my reading I would be upset. Once I reached junior-high age or so, I stopped reading books as much for my personal enjoyment. I started reading textbooks and doing homework until, by the time I was in high school, I don’t think I read any books other than school books and scriptures. That’s how it is now as well. I rarely find time to read all that I’m supposed to for my classes from textbooks and journals, so I don’t make time to read other books either.
Because I read so many books as a child, it’s difficult to pick a favorite. At the time, though, my favorite may likely have been The Work and the Glory series or The Kingdom and the Crown series. Both are written by the same author, Gerald Lund, and have similar historical fiction flavors with adventure, triumph and tragedy woven into very real occurrences of the past. The Work and the Glory takes place in the early first half of the 1800’s in connection with the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. These books follow a fictional family that participates in many nonfictional events in church history. Similarly, The Kingdom and the Crown follows a fictional family through significant religious events, but the timeframe is Christ’s mortal ministry and the setting is The Holy Land. I liked both of these series because they were fun and exciting to read, they had distinct characters who had realistic strengths and weaknesses, and I learned a lot of real stories surrounding church history and the Savior’s life that I had not known before. Learning these stories helped me learn truth and discover what I believe more fully. They helped me have a richer context when I read my scriptures as well so that I could understand the words of God more fully. I think that in adolescence I had strongly identified myself with my religious beliefs. Maybe these books made me feel like I better understood who I was.

Lying E-mail

So, I like to think I'm not someone that gets annoyed easily or has a lot of pet peaves, but I tell ya, I cannot stand really long surveys. I received this e-mail a few days ago that showed up in my inbox as coming from President Samuelson. I've never received an e-mail that said President Samuelson was the sender. I opened it and it talked about some national college experience survey or something and how he would appreciate it if I took it. I decided I didn't have time for it then, but that I would do it soon (I have this weird hobby of taking surveys and I try and be a good citizen : ).

Well, after a crazy week I started taking this survey today that said it should take about 15 minutes. I thought that was pretty reasonable. Well, let me tell you that I don't know if people could even have gone through the whole survey without reading any of the prompts and filled in all of the bubbles in 15 minutes. As I took page after page of the survey, I kept thinking I must almost be done. Well, I wasn't. I'm not sure how long it took me in the end, but it was closer to an hour and 15 minutes than it was to 15 minutes. It was ridiculous. I felt lied to. No one could have taken that survey, trying to give accurate feedback, and been done in 15 minutes. No one.

I decided to reply to the e-mail saying I was disappointed and frustrated that the e-mail had been so misleading in saying it would only take about 15 minutes so as to have more people take their survey. I thought about stopping several times, but I thought that I must be close to being done, and that it would be a waste to close it out when I was so far into it. It was interesting that when I hit the reply button in my e-mail, the e-mail address that popped up was not President Samuelson's or any BYU e-mail address for that matter, but some national college survey organization's. It made feel a little better that it was not President Samuelson lying. It was simply an organization that President Samuelson was condoning.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

So, last night my wife and I watched the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." The most scandalous part in the whole movie is probably either when the senator's daughter comes into a scene with a sleeveless, spaghetti-strap dress on or scenes showing some characters drinking alcohol. That was the worst!
I couldn't help but think, "What has happened to our standards?" This movie was made in 1939 and is so much cleaner than even some PG movies today. It was not rated. According to Wikipedia standardized ratings weren't used until the late 1960's (probably because there weren't movies bad enough much earlier than that), but a little earlier than that some local governments tried to ban certain movies with something similar to a rating system. Interesting.