Beach Haven

I’ve been writing opinion/observation articles for nearly 24 years now. It started when we decided to create our family newsletter called the Beach Haven Press (aka BHP). Just thinking about what’s in a “newspaper”, I thought there should be an editorial section. It was hoped back in the day that others would speak their mind on occasion. In truth there has been a few others write in that document, but they have been very few and far between. By and large The Last Word has been more like a personal platform. The picture at the opening of this post is the header that I've used for that section of the BHP for many years.

Making something easier for people can also cause it to be taken for granted. When we started with the BHP they were physically mailed. In those days an envelope arrived in the snail mail. A person had to open and read, or just toss it. That is a push model. Then we moved to email. A person had to click to read or click to delete. This is also a push model. Finally they were posted on the website. Now instead of the content arriving and a person deciding to do something with it, they had to decide to go get the content. This is a pull model. There is/was the option to set up an RSS feed to make it act more like a push model, but then a person has to know what an RSS feed is, then take the action to set it up once.

Readership definitely dropped off. There were few of us involved to begin with, but family members did actually file articles at first without a great deal of prodding. How do I know readership dropped with each lowering of the access bar? That’s easy. It has gotten more and more difficult to convince family members to put content in. Several have been staunch supporters, but some of those few even waiver a bit.

Along with that regular BHP editorial, at some point some years ago I started playing with this BLOG. I really doubt that anyone actually ever reads any of this stuff. There have been a very small number of these posts that related enough to work or some compelling topic of the day that I have linked them in other social media. In those contexts there were a few comments or “likes”. Interestingly, nobody then continues reading on this BLOG site and comments. I get it. I don't tend to add more sites beyond my limited social media footprint either. Some of my content starts as an internal posting at work where I do get direct feedback from colleagues. Which of these postings start in that way might seem more obvious to any would-be reader.

I imagine that if I were posting them on a popular BLOG site there might be a few people in the great big blog-o-sphere world that would find my drivel of some limited interest. So why not just post there, Mike? I guess it depends on what the author is looking to get out of the writing maybe. I definitely am not writing to have people notice me. I write mostly out of habit that began all the way back to June of 1982. That’s when I started my service as a missionary for the church. As part of that experience we were encouraged to do three things related to writing.  Write in a journal daily. Write to our parents weekly. Write to our mission president weekly.

These three forms of writing are very different. To the mission president I mostly wrote what might be thought of as a report. To my parents I wrote stories and ideas. To my journal (myself) I was often introspective. I tend not to review much of my journal because what little bit I have looked at through my now older eyes seems too judgmental of myself and others.

After graduating from college I started writing again, I mean non-academically. This time it was in the form of letters to my wife and children whenever the Navy caused long absences. Finally, a few years after the Navy we started the BHP. So in a way, my writing now, even though it’s likely nobody does or will read any of this, feels like a continuation of all of these other writings that started on my church mission. It's like a sort of habit.

This is where I document some of the stuff I think about. There are plenty of topics I think about that have never seen the light of day here, or anywhere. Some of them I consider too sacred to share and feel they are more personally revelatory for me, not necessarily meant to be shared. Much of it won’t get written because of time constraint. There is more to life than writing. I don’t know why or even how I pick what to write. I see a little window of time, come up with a small thought, and then expound a little on it. This post is a good example of that process.

If anyone is actually reading this, perhaps you need to think about what has driven you to stay with it this far, maybe even write about why. Chances are pretty good that the only “you” who is still reading is really just “me”. This thought is what led to the title at the top.

If you’ve read some of my past postings you would know that I often see the world in terms of continua. Recently I had a discussion with the young men I work with in church (the priests quorum) about what self-reliance means. We spoke in terms of temporal self-reliance (making a living) and spiritual self-reliance (building one’s faith). In the conversation it seemed like maybe a self-reliance scale might correlate with a pride scale.
​
The first scale might look like this:

​Realistically, nobody is on either end of this scale. The idea of being “self-sufficient” in my opinion is equivalent to the belief that someone can be completely independent. I would say there is no such thing. It is true that we can work and earn a living. We can cover all our needs by using the money we earn to buy what we need. That is still not completely self-sufficient. We have to buy stuff. We don’t make our own clothes. If we do make some of our own clothes we still would have to buy the cloth, or at least the raw materials to make the cloth. We don’t grow our own vegetables year around. We buy them, or most of them. We didn’t personally build our own homes. Even if we did, we didn’t create the materials needed to build the home. You get the point. We can be self-reliant in that we do all we can do, but in virtually every aspect of life we become dependent on someone else to provide something.

The greatest example of this interdependence issue would be on the spiritual side. Nobody receives salvation without the Savior. We cannot do it on our own. We show faith by doing all we can. Then we acknowledge where we fall short and depend on the Atonement of Jesus Christ to lift us the rest of the way.

I would argue our level of interdependence is simply a measure of how much we can do for ourselves in balance with how much we have to depend on others. Some people will have more challenges in life and be closer to the dependent side of the scale. Others might land towards the more independent side of the scale. I would also argue, regardless where we fall on this scale, so long as we do all within our power to sustain ourselves, however limited that might be, then we are being self-reliant. Self-reliance is less a measure of our independence so much as it is a measure of our effort to put ourselves as far to the right of this scale as we can, given our individual limitations. Nobody gets all the way to complete independence. We should do what we can to match our self-reliance efforts with our interdependence capability.

​The second scale might look like this:

​A correlation could exist between these two scales in several complicated ways.

A person could believe they have limitations beyond their control. This could lead them toward discouragement wishing they were not as limited, and more like “normal” people. It could also lead them to self-justify in self-limiting if the limit is perceived and not real. Low expectation has kept many from better levels of self-reliance.

A person could actually have limitations beyond their control (in fact we all do). As with perceived limitations, discouragement can be an outcome for the same reasons.

A person with either perceived or actual limitations who feel they are living up to that level are perhaps less likely to be discouraged to the degree that they accept the level of dependence they have.

There are exact opposing issues on the pride side of the confidence scale. To the degree a person recognizes or perceives their dependence, they might tend away from the extreme of the pride side of the scale.

Just like self-reliance requires both a true understanding of interdependence and an effort to do all in one’s power to do what they can to match efforts with ability, so to, having a true understanding of interdependence and effort level should lead to appropriate level of self-confidence. Getting too far out of balance leads towards discouragement or pride. Either could be the result of an unrealistic perspective of one’s level of interdependence on others and/or an unrealistic perspective of one’s level of effort toward true self-reliance.

I think the key to the relationship between the two scales is to recognize that there may be correlation and causation, or not. The cause of pride or discouragement is when the perceived interdependence does not match actual interdependence. If we believe there is less interdependence than there actually is, we might tend toward pride. If we believe there is more interdependence than there actually is, we might tend toward discouragement. If our level of interdependence correlates with our perception of interdependence, then we are being self-reliant and are more likely to have self-confidence.