When you read the news, let's hope we have the right map!
This is EksAyn Anderson and this is The Principle Podcast. Today, we're going to be talking about what I think may be the most important podcast that we've had, and maybe ever will have, and this podcast is about maps versus what's real. Let me give you an example. All of us have an opinion about how the world is. We say, "Okay, this is how the world really is." But the truth is the world, despite the way we think it is, there's actually such a thing as a real truth, how the actual, real world works. In other words, I can believe that something's a certain way, but in reality, it may be different.
I was visiting a school recently and I was trying to go into this room. As I walked into this room, I thought that I could walk into this room, but there was some really good glass there and I actually bumped into this glass. So even though I thought that I could walk into this room, there was glass in this door and I bumped into it. It didn't matter that I thought I could walk in. It didn't matter that I thought that it was real, that I would have a clear, right way. Actually, it was embarrassing I walked in this glass. Here's the thing. If we have a map of the world that doesn't match up with what's really there, we're going to have issues.
Can you imagine having a map of Nebraska? So you think you're in this nice, beautiful cornfield in Nebraska, but you're really in the Grand Canyon. If your map doesn't match up... You may think I can walk straight along this cornfield. In reality, you might be hitting a 100-foot cliff somewhere in the Grand Canyon. And so, it is so important that we try to figure out what's really real. Now, I'm a human being. I don't claim to know everything. I really don't. My map could be wrong, but let me tell you one thing that I believe very strongly to be true and I think it's something that as we read the news, as we read about current events, that we start to think about things in a way.
Let me just throw this out here for you to think about. So, Neal A. Maxwell said something. He said, "Most of the problems that are most vexing are things government can't fix. They have to be fixed at a different level. That's the urgency of our message. Unless we rebuild marriages and families, then we are really just straightening deck chairs on the Titanic." Let's assume for a minute that this map matches up with reality and I personally think it does. Most of the problems that are vexing us are things that government can't fix.
And so when I read the news, a lot of times I read things that say, "Okay, there was this shooting and we need to have more guns or less guns," or, "There's this social problem. We need to have more social spending or less social spending," or we read something about, "It's this politician's fault or that politician's fault," or, "This political party's fault or this political party's fault." And so, people are always trying to point the finger that this is the problem, and this is the problem, and this is the problem. But what if those maps are wrong? What if the problems really do have to be fixed at a different level?
