Jinxed Universe

So, most everyone over 18 considers themselves a man or a woman. Well, generally yes they can. But, to truly consider one a man it takes more than age. Most of you have seen what I am talking about, boys that should be men, but end up shirking their duties and wasting their time.

If we remember the scripture in Mosiah, that says, "For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and puteth off the natural man..." Does the natural man like to be lazy and waste their time with video games and shirking their natural duties? Of course!!! Boys like not having to work, being able to watch TV, and not caring about anything but themselves. So, a "boy" is a natural man. We must learn to become less "boyish" and more like men.

Now days we see a lot of these types of "boys". They come in all types of ages and even men can let the boy out occasionally. So, what brings on the man out of a boy? Usually this means there has been an increase of responsibilities that they will fail or succeed. Now, this doesn't mean choosing the type of food I'm going to eat, but life changing decisions. Like going on a mission, getting married, having kids, going to college, etc. These decisions require more than your standard, dang I screwed up consequences, but life altering failures or successes.

So, when these responsibilities come, they either become a man, or fail and stay a boy. "Men" who don't want to take on the responsibilities of having a wife, kids, an education, even to the extreames of having a job, are not "Men" but boys. A person that cannot support themselves cannot be considered a man but a boy. I find that our society likes to find excuses and reasons to call a boy a man. That their reasons for putting of their duties is because of depression, emotional troubles, or whatever. They thing that by making this backdoor into manhood, that one becomes a man. I think that by creating these safety nets , we remove the possibility of failure. It is that pressure of failure that helps us push further.

Failure is okay, In scouting we are taught that we are to let the boys fail, but to control the type of failure. If a boy doesn't setup his tent when he is told and then it starts to rain, we have to let them get wet and cold to learn, but to make sure that they don't die. This way they can fail and understand why they must do what they are told. I know people that love to bring extras of everything so the boys can rely on their leaders to have brought what they need. I don't, I feel this is another safety net, if they don't bring their utensils, or whatever, they can survive without it, it may not be pleasant, but they will remember to bring it the next time we go camping.

Work and responsibilities are an important product in making a man. We must prove ourselves in some difficult situations before we can come out better when we came in. Think of refining a metal, we take the unrefined ore and put it in the smelter to separate the slag from the pure ore. If we can stand that fire and remove the "natural man" we can become men and better than when we entered the smelter.

President Faust talked about how his father gave him the responsibility of taking care of a lamb and when a storm came, he didn't put it in the barn, so when the day came, it had died. His father told him how disappointed he was in him. So, we see here he was given responsibilities and he was able to fail and was able to learn a great lesson as a youth that has stuck with him throughout his life.