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The Hour Glass Principle

There have been many anxious moments in watching my children and their peers grow and mature. Sometimes it reminds me of the bee who keeps flying into the glass pane not realizing that it is the bee that needs to modify its behavior.  The pane of glass is immoveable. I wish that I could write a letter to these young people counseling them of life’s pitfalls so they won’t knock into the immovable window pane but deafness seems to have fallen upon so many young people today.  In other cultures older people are considered wiser but in our society we enroll in the school of hard knocks, avoiding advice.  If I were to write them a letter I would entitle it “An Open Letter to Every Seventeen Year Old.”  It would say something like this: 

Dear newly turned seventeen year old:  Well, here you are, past the age of sixteen.  You now realize that turning sixteen was not the magical age that unlocked the mysteries of the world as you always imagined.  You have learned the world does not bow at your feet. Those dates you always imagined never came or if those dates did come you now realize they brought a whole new level of emotions and feelings often lacking the happiness you expected or had fantasized about in your dreams. You may even be asking yourself what went wrong and have started to doubt your own abilities.  Hopefully, you are beginning to wonder if there is more you can do to make life happen. If this is the case you have reached a teachable point in your life.

These doubts and feelings are all just part of growing up.  Let me explain something I have learned by observing the hourglass.  I call it the hourglass principle where life is divided into two phases separated by a small narrow passageway or neck. On one side is the child who expects to be waited upon, always having someone meet his/her needs.  On the other side is a life of service.  As a child your decisions are made for you and you generally obey whatever you’re told.  Minimal self-discipline is expected except for behavior required to make you socially acceptable. You are basically happy living in the world your parents have created for you. In essence, your world represented by the sand peacefully resting at the hourglass’s base brings a degree of security and freedom that makes you happy and content.

When the hour glass is turned upside down your world changes. Constant rules and restrictions are being put in your way.  The space seems to be closing in around you as parents give advice, admonitions and rules to keep you safe as you travel through that narrow neck.  You start to realize that not everyone likes you and that you need to change to be accepted.  This is when that gospel foundation you’ve been taught is being tested.  Demands from school, teachers, peers and parents lead you to believe that your freedom is being taken away.  But it is not!  This is just a time in one’s life where you are pressured as an individual to decide who you are and what you want to become. Some of you may struggle in this narrow neck for a long time. Until you gain the understanding that rules, either social or moral, need to be observed or you will be forever in that narrow passageway.  Hopefully you will see by not conforming to rules that freedoms can actually be taken away from you.   The wise individual will realize by using discipline and reaching out to others that true freedom will soon to be opening up.

Practicing the concept of self-discipline is the only way to achieve true freedom and independence. Once you pass through that narrow neck you see the world differently…it is not, “What is in this for me” or “why are they making me do this?’…rather it becomes, “How can I serve and what can I give to others?”  That one concept will thrust you into the larger area of the hourglass.  Reaching out to others brings a happiness that can never be received if you are waiting for people to satisfy your needs. There is no magical age or teacher that brings on this knowledge it evolves from the experience of living and changing behavior.

This year of your life is the time for self discipline and restraints, concentrating on your own spiritual foundation, educational goals, personality development and the life you are going to have. In just another year you turn 18, becoming a legal adult and what you make of your life will be your doing. Use this next year to reach out to others, becoming your best self and being the person you visualize yourself being in the future. The concept I heard as a young girl was, “If you want to marry a certain kind of individual then you need to become that certain kind of individual yourself.”  This year should commence the beginning of becoming that person you want to be.

It is easy to see, now that I am older, that where you are at certain times in your life determines your future.  Examine who your friends are, your spiritual commitment, your academic level and goals, your attitudes and your teachability. Every aspect of your life today plays a part in who you will become in the years ahead.  Now is the beginning of the end of your teenage years and the questions to ask yourself are, “Who are you?” “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” and “What are you doing to get there?”  The answers may require changing behavioral habits and patterns. This change needs to take place by self motivation and of your own accord.

At this time in your life your decisions, choices and attitudes will affect all eternity.  The sooner you get through the middle of the hourglass by learning the correct principles the sooner the world will open up and you will have true happiness, freedom and independence.  Begin your life!

 


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