September, you know what's funny?

You and I both seem to have switched sides between Heidu's quotes and this thread. Did you notice that? It must be a terminology issue. I am viewing depression as just one type of adversity. And it was just recently that I could not see anything learned from depression that could possibly be worth it, but maybe there are worse things. I do believe that any kind of adversity, though it may be terrible and we might think there is no way we can get through it, has the potential to teach us something.

Please note, that is potential to teach us. If we refuse to learn, we don't get any benefit.

If you had the chance to trade all the problems you have had or will have in your life for someone else's, would you? There's a story about that. People brought all their problems to a central location and each one dropped off their burden and took someone else's home with them to try it out and see if they liked it better. They kept switching around, and at the end all decided to keep their own. They were used to it and had figured out how to deal with it, and while it might be heavy, it fit them best.

I don't have the stuff from that conference to send you, but it really was pretty good. Both of the people who spoke were comedians! Maybe you would have had to be there, but one talked about the "How are you" question, and suggested that a good way to answer it would be to grin really big and say, "Happy, thank-you!" That's too big of a step for me at this point though. She also talked about elevators, how people just stand in there and look at the walls and all the buttons, but never say anything to each other. She said she always wants to reach out and touch someone as they are getting out and say, "Tag, you're it." She brought in a piece of the mirror from her car, pointing out the part on it that says, "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear," and explaining how that applies to garage doors, even the fifth or sixth time that you have broken off the same mirror on the same garage door. The whole time she was telling the story she was grinning. You probably had to be there to appreciate it.

The source material for the lessons I taught are available on-line though. If you are interested, you can read them:

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,2044-1-2203-1,00.html>Prepare To Be Strong Through Trials</A>

The Peaceable Things Of The Kingdom

Now Is The Time

<font color=purple>"The real problem of mental life is not why some people become insane, but rather why most avoid insanity." -Erich Fromm</font color=purple>