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| A Bull's Eye Lantern |
This week, please find an autobiography or biography to read. I will ask you to have these read by week 7. You can start now if you would like. Let me know if you would like some suggestions. As you read, be looking at their choices, why they chose the way they did, and how their choices influenced their happiness. We will be sharing these stories and lessons with one another on week 7.
Essays often appeal to a person's reason (or logical thought) to help them come to some truth the writer wants him to understand. You saw this in Plutarch. Stevenson starts this essay with a story to appeal to a person's feelings about a truth he wants him to see. Which is more effective? Is one better than the other? Why?
Week 6 Inspirements:
1. Watch: How to Read the Great Books Set (7 min)
2. Read The Pathway of Discipleship by Neal A Maxwell
3. Read: Ilyas by Leo Tolstoy and these excerpts from The Lantern Bearers by Robert Louis Stevenson. Look for happiness principles and underline them or jot them down. *This essay is also found on the Gateway to the Great Books set #10
4. Write your favorite quote AND a discussion question on the blog BY THURSDAY. Don't forget this step!
5. Keep tracking your goals and noticing what helps you accomplish them and what tactics Satan uses to keep you from accomplishing them. Each class, you will have a chance to share any war strategies that you find (we skipped this part yesterday so we'll be sure to do it this week).
6. Send me an email telling me which autobiography you have chosen and when you plan to start reading it.
*Remember to bring your peer reviewed papers to class or to email them to those in your last group. We will be encouraging you to post the final version on the discussion blog and invite parents and others to read them. It will be a great way for you to share your light.
What does having the spirit with you have to do with happiness? If I am staying 'spiritually centered' or 'keeping the spirit with me' will that help me to be happy?
ReplyDeleteAre misery and sadness the same thing, and, if not, which is the true opposite of happiness?
ReplyDeleteIs work equal to happiness? if so what makes people happy about work? In Leo Tolstoy's the Ilyas, Ilyas discovers that when he was rich he wasn't happy even though he did work, but later on when working for Muhammed-Shah he was happy, what do you think the reason for his happiness was?
ReplyDeleteSorry I meant "Does work equal happiness?"
DeleteWhat brings people to pride? Can happiness? Can happiness also cause jealousy or envy? Or does evrything good come from happiness?
ReplyDeleteOh! And favorite quote! Nearly forgot! ;)
Delete'True, as the scripture says, "Wickedness never was happiness" (Alma 41:10), but neither is lukewarmness full happiness. Failing to be valiant in Christian discipleship will leave us without significant happiness. Therefore, our active avoidance of wickedness must be followed by our active engagement in righteousness. Then we can come to know true joy - after all, man is that he "might have joy" (2 Nephi 2:25).' ~ Neal A Maxwell, "The Pathway of Discipleship"
Here's one of my favorite quotes from our readings this week:
ReplyDelete(From The Lantern Bearer).
"And, the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing."
Here's my question:
ReplyDeleteDoes approval of others bring happiness? Or does approving of others bring happiness? Should we seek for either?
Question: Do we gain more happiness with smaller things, or bigger things? Does it depend on the person?
ReplyDeleteElder Maxwell says "The promptings for us to do good come from the Holy Ghost. These promptings nudge us farther along the straight and narrow path of discipleship." Is this true?
ReplyDeleteMy favorite quote was when Elder Maxwell said "....we, as Church members, have a tremendous challenge being equal to our theology and our opportunity. We fall short. If we stumble, let us arise and continue the climb. The Lord will bless us because we are possessed of truths about "“things as they really are, and . . . things as they really will be”" These truths beckon us, even in our imperfections, to be better." It gives you a sense of hope that even though we fall short, we can always do better and come closer to being better.
My Question: Is Happiness finally getting what you've been going for and finally completing a goal to get what you want? Or, Being grateful for what you have while still having want to improve, and become more like Heavenly Father?
ReplyDeleteQuote: "We do not always weep alone." The reason I liked this one so much is it gives comfort that we are NEVER really alone!
Favorite quote:
ReplyDelete'Why, in this,' she replied, 'when we were rich my husband and I had so many cares that we had no time to talk to one another, or to think of our souls, or to pray to God. Now we had visitors, and had to consider what food to set before them, and what presents to give them, lest they should speak ill of us. When they left, we had to look after our labourers who were always trying to shirk work and get the best food, while we wanted to get all we could out of them. So we sinned. Then we were in fear lest a wolf should kill a foal or a calf, or thieves steal our horses. We lay awake at night, worrying lest the ewes should overlie their lambs, and we got up again and again to see that all was well. One thing attended to, another care would spring up: how, for instance, to get enough fodder for the winter. And besides that, my old man and I used to disagree. He would say we must do so and so, and I would differ from him; and then we disputed -- sinning again. So we passed from one trouble to another, from one sin to another, and found no happiness.'
Can work bring you haooiness
ReplyDeleteIs Stevenson saying happiness varies from man to man? Is that true?
ReplyDeleteCan work bring you happiness?
ReplyDeleteNeal A. Maxwell Said:
ReplyDeleteWe can also come to know, through obedience, how much God loves us as his immortal children. It happens just as President Brigham Young said it would:
How shall we know that we obey [God]? There is but one method by which we can know it, and that is by the inspiration of the Spirit of the Lord witnessing unto our spirit that we are His, that we love Him, and that He loves us. It is by the spirit of revelation we know this.
“There are great challenges ahead of us, giant opportunities to be met. I welcome that exciting prospect and feel to say to the Lord, humbly, ‘Give me this mountain,’ give me these challenges.” - Pres. Eyring
ReplyDelete“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
“The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
“Therefore, hold on thy way, and the priesthood shall remain with thee; for their bounds are set, they cannot pass. Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.” - D&C 122:7-9