STEM or Liberal Arts Education or Both?

Benjamin wants to code and works hard in High School moving up through the levels of math, performs well in his other classes, graduates with honors, attends a 24-week coding program at a state college and after a lot of work and huge expense, he becomes a web developer. A company hires him, he falls in love, gets married and begins a family and he is set for life. Or is he?

The educational push over the last couple of decades seems to be in the STEM subjects, such as coding, software design, etc. Students are paying the price to study in universities and colleges to learn the current technology. But, is there a problem with the overwhelming drive to excel in STEM? Should students be encouraged to focus mainly on science, technology, engineering, and math?

Sure, there are many important jobs that require knowledge in STEM such as computer programming, electrical, mechanical, or civil engineer, microbiologist, family practitioner, economist or urban planner, and industrial machinery mechanic to name a few. The cogs and gears in our world would simply stop without knowledge in STEM and the jobs that deal with it. 

However, the trend over the last 100 years or so has seen that artificial intelligence is increasingly getting better at replicating the jobs of humans. For some, AI is something to fear because it is taking over the jobs. For others, they know AI and automation are part of the normal course in advancing technologies. Take, for instance, the carriage drivers and typists that were replaced by automobiles and computers. Or the hand quilter being replaced by the machine quilter. And look at the advances in agricultural businesses. In years past the farmer would sell his apples to the packing companies, who would hire hundreds of seasonal employees and they would sort the apples into rankings or categories and then pack them accordingly. Now, the packers invest in efficient machinery that processes the product rapidly and more cost-effectively. 

Recently, my family and I took a tour of the Stemilt Packing company in Wenatchee, Washington while visiting my son. The massive, maybe 50,000 square foot warehouse boasted of the latest technology run by only five or ten workers. At one end, the apples were placed into water canals and moved along to wash, wax, and polish them. As they bobbed along they ran under a massive photo/x-ray machine that takes a photo image which determines if they have bad spots, worms, or other blemishes and directs those into different water canals for applesauce, pies, or discarding. The apples in excellent condition were then sorted into different sizes and packed accordingly for different retail sellers. I was amazed at the whole efficient process. Some would balk at the fact so many workers lost jobs due to the machinery. I can see their point, but only to a certain degree. Yes, AI is replacing jobs that can be replicable by robots, but that trend will always exist as long as there are humans and increased knowledge. 

Back to the question whether Benjamin is set for life or not, Roland Moore-Colyer’s internet article states, "Programming trends suggest that software development will undergo a radical change in the future: the combination of machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and code generation technologies will improve in such a way that machines, instead of humans, will write most of their own code by 2040,” It appears that Benjamin ought to be prepared to look for another job in 20 years right about the time his children are leaving home, going to college or getting married. Or in other words, very expensive time of life. 

The solution, you ask? Well, it is an age-old one and is evident in the lives of all the great thinkers and doers. A liberal arts education is an education that supplies the real-life answers. A liberal arts education gives the person the ability to see the needs of a situation, be a leader, be a creator, an ability to do anything that is needed. Before the modern colleges cropped up everywhere, it was required of all students to go through four years of rigorous education in the liberal arts so they could become the best people they could. They were required to learn the histories and the lessons of history, they were required to understand their culture and the great ideas presented in the best literature and philosophy works. The goal of a liberal arts education is to make men free. 

It helps to understand the literal meaning of the two words, liberal, and arts. The word liberal is derived from the Latin word liber, which simply and literally means “tree bark”. The fact is that the classic great works were originally printed on processed tree bark to make scrolls and bound books. It was known then and has been forgotten today, that these classic works contained the liberating ideas that gained and maintained freedom for any man who knew them. The word art means a set of rules you follow to do that particular thing. For instance, the art of painting with oils means the rules you follow to paint with the oil paints. It’s that simple. In the case of the liberal arts, it means the rules you follow to maintain liberty.

What can a human do that artificial intelligence cannot do? Humans can find truths, create, see beauty, build trust, be empathetic, “get the joke” or understand humor, understand sadness or loss, act on intuition, learn to speak and write well, and use Agency to choose. A liberal arts education teaches all this and so much more. It should teach a man or woman to be virtuous and honest so that when they are out in the world, they can be the man or woman God created them to be. Where a professional education teaches how to code, a liberal arts education teaches what to code and what not to code. 

The Google company has determined they want to hire employees efficient in eight areas. Note that the last area is the only one that has anything to do with professional training. The eight things they are looking for in a new employee are whether they can coach others, communicate well, listen, make connections with others, possess insights, are supportive, have critical thinking skills, and finally have IT knowledge. Most companies are looking for people who have a strong work ethic, can reason things out in their minds, are flexible, are prepared for any event, and are okay with working and thinking in uncharted areas. An education in the liberal arts is worth its weight in gold when it comes to preparing a person to work in any environment. Do a Google search for famous people who have a liberal arts degree and you will be amazed. 

It is true artificial intelligence is taking over many jobs, but a liberal arts education can prepare you for any job that is needed. Benjamin would never have to worry about losing his job because he’d have the ability to take on any job. Most companies will train their employees in their specific task, but what is equally essential is to be an honest, amiable, employee with a can-do attitude. 

Check out a new liberal arts college in Salt Lake City, called Mount Liberty College. I am attending part-time and loving it. I had the founders come to speak to my humanities class this week and this article was a result of what I learned in their presentation. You will be amazed at what you will become as you attend Mount Liberty and participate in the amazing discussions. Check out their newest class open to high schoolers age 16 and up called Defense Against the Dark Arts. 

Economic Laws Make Abundance Possible

Owning land boosts the economy more than you think. Renters are not producing anything for themselves, but are using someone else’s property and paying them, that means that one of the two is increasing and the other is not, generally speaking. When looking at the Mayflower Company and Plymouth Colony, you know they struggled that first year, but did you know they literally struggled to stay alive for their first three years? The Indians helped them out, in fact, I would not be surprised if Squanto had not been a godsend to them. He knew the English language well after having been taken captive by a Spaniard and taken to Spain where he escaped and traveled to and lived in England before he came back to his native land. He knew the language, the English customs, the religion, the food, and everything one could know about the English culture. When he returned home, he discovered that the plague had killed off all his people, leaving him the only survivor of his tribe. 

In the first three years of living at Plymouth, the hardships multiplied: deaths, starvation, extreme temperatures, illnesses, Indian raids, etc. Although the government had been set up before they set foot on land, some of the principles were against a good economic system. They had settled on a common land approach and were headed for oblivion as all nations do when they embrace a communal, socialist plan. 

In the diary of William Bradford, we discover that land was held in common, crops were brought to a common storehouse and equally distributed to all. For the first two years, every person was required to work for everybody else, the community, rather than for themselves as individuals or family. Did William Bradford’s company live happily ever after in their socialist utopia? The answer is no. The Plymouth colony could not lift themselves out of the dire poverty and starvation. The “common property” approach took the lives of half the settlers. Governor Bradford recorded in his diary that everyone was happy to claim their share in the harvests and production, but production shrank. In other words, the produce that was brought into the storehouses continued to decrease. In this instance, there were shirkers and slackers who would show up late while the hard workers began to resent them. Contempt and resentment grew and production declined.  

The disincentives of the socialist scheme bred starvation, destitution, and conflict until Bradford altered the system and divided up the land and gave each family a one-acre plot to do with as they wished. The new owners produced whatever they desired and then kept or traded freely with others. The result was a tremendous increase in prosperity.

As our nation’s students are seeking learning from the various schools, public and private, they are susceptible to the ubiquitous notion that socialism is the answer to our problem of poverty. Where will they find other solutions to the problem? Almost nowhere in our present homogenous system will they find the right answers. Socialism is a trendy fascination right now. Sharing the wealth with everyone and having everything in common looks desirable, and yet it is one of the most dangerous ideas. We do not have to go far into our past to see that socialism created oblivion and devastation in Russia and China. No, the answer lies further in our past, in the story of William Bradford and later in the Founding Father’s writings. Can there be any doubt in anyone’s mind after studying the history of these United States that private property and laws protecting it have created the vast wealth?

I believe it was divine intervention that motivated them to adopted a very different system which was the birth of the most powerful economic system, a system I would call the abundance miracle. At this time of thanksgiving, I lift my prayer of deep gratitude to the Lord for private property and the knowledge of natural rights, natural laws that protect it, and also sincere gratitude for the profit motive that has made abundance possible.

Life Is Like a Tree

This essay is still under construction, read at your own risk:

As I was raking the leaves today I became overwhelmed with the number of leaves to clean up with 7 maple trees in our yard, 6 in the back and 1 huge Red Maple in front, the striking kind that makes everyone look. The kind that makes everyone wish they lived on that particular street in the fall. 

Our trees drop a mess in May, a mess in June and a huge mess in November. The tree in front must be a female tree because it produces little red flowers before any leaves begin to sprout. Looking up into the tree with the clear blue sky as the backdrop, you see clusters of tiny red berries and suddenly they burst into tiny red flowers, dropping as soon as the samaras begin to grow. Remember those things that children call ‘helicopters’ that fly out of the maple trees in late spring? Well, they are officially called the samaras and were super fun to play with as a child. Back to the messes. I spend a good couple of days raking up and sweeping the dead flower clusters in May and just when school lets out and our summer gets going, there is another big drop of helicopters (samaras) in June and another thorough sweeping is required. But be prepared for the fall when we have to fill twenty-plus big black bags with the dead leaves. And it is not a one day process. 

This year, in particular, the cold happened early on for a day or two and then it warmed up for a month. Once again, the front tree was spectacular. Friends and neighbors sent texts and emails, even photos of our tree complimenting how impressive and beautiful it was. Even perfect strangers talk about that incredible tree on 900 East and proudly I claim it and instantly I become famous. Okay, that is slight hyperbole, but seriously, the tree is magnificently conspicuous. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to enjoy the fiery show of my Red Maple this year as I was in another state with my oldest daughter and her family for a couple of weeks while she had her fifth baby and my seventh grandchild. However, like clockwork, I received texts and comments about my beautiful tree. When I arrived home, the tree was covered with almost all of its leaves still, but they had begun to turn from the flaming red to a reddish-brown indicating the leaves would soon drop. I waited to rake the few that had already fallen since others would soon join them and I could get more in one sitting, but the days were warm and the wind was absent causing the leaves to cling onto the branches. Hannah and I made our way outside to rake what had been there on the ground, thinking that soon the others would fall and we would bag them up before the cold and wind came. However grand the plan, there is always another Planner who knows more than we do. Nature whipped up a wind storm during the night last week and loosened the grip of most of our leaves and swept them into the yards of all my close neighbors. I woke with a dread that we had deliberately “shared” the work of gathering to all my dear friends. Ugh, would I need to go rake everyone’s yard? The dreaded mess in everyone’s yard overwhelmed me and I choked on it for a while until I wondered whether it was not my fault or not. I reasoned that I had done all that I could possibly do and that it was surely the work of Mother Nature. Everyone would understand, right? Besides, the wind continued to blow and so the leaves would continue to migrate into other yards more distant. Back and forth I went in my mind, but there has to come a time when you realize that you just cannot control things that you have no control over, therefore I decided I would pick up only the leaves on my property currently and let the rest of my neighbors deal with those that mother nature had so carelessly planted in their yards.

I figuratively rolled up my sleeves and began to rake what was left in my yard, driveway, and gutter. Dave came out to help and we raked, gathered, and bagged for at least two hours. Most of the leaves were in the back yard where 6 tall maple trees reside. It seemed as though we were not making much of a dent while the clocked ticked on. The weather app said that snow would come each day next week starting on Monday and today was Saturday. We estimated that a foot of snow would fall over a 6 day period. We had limited time before having to head into town for a reception and became conscious that we would not finish in time before the snow covered the rest. 

My mind had been pondering on the overwhelming messiness of the leaves, the wind, the work to clean up, the effort of being responsible owners, and all the emotion and reason that accompanies it. I compared all this to life and how life is messy too. And it matters a great deal if I deal with the mess in a responsible manner; cleaning up, fixing, bagging and disposing of the mess of mortality in a moral and ethical manner. 

I thought of a loved one who has intentionally left the faith of his childhood and dragged his children with him through the messy process of a faith crisis. His actions have pulled him away from everything he has held dear and he is left alone with himself and his buddies who support him. He has willfully and deliberately sought to influence any and all to join his crisis campaign in an attempt to justify and validate his actions and beliefs. For three years I have been watching the wind blow him and his children around. Each has lost the connection to their branches—their anchor against the storms—and are willfully living in a whirlwind of falsehoods, deceit, dishonesty, unfaithfulness, and deceptiveness. Just as the wind blew my leaves in all directions and into the yards of my neighbors, his actions have affected everyone around him in a tremendous way. His irresponsibility has blinded him to the mess and has enshrouded him with false comfort and well-being while his children are on the path of self-destruction.

How do you stop people from doing stupid things? How do you help them see what they are blind to? How do you talk to them? What could he have done differently to not have fallen into the trap of the Destroyer? What could I have done differently? My head is churning, my heart is burning, I go back and forth in my mind whether there is something I can do or not. There is not. These things are the “leaves that have blown into another’s yard” and are not mine to clean up. I can only clean myself up. I can only be responsible to make my life clean and pure. I can bag up the baggage and throw it away leaving only the best me; handing over my natural self and making my will God’s will. And in that manner, I will be divinely empowered to clean up any mess my life or the life of others produce. 

As C. S. Lewis says, 

‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked—the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.’ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Do You Know the Power of Natural Rights?

Today I recorded my reading of Sophocles’s Antigone into my iPhone’s voice memo app so that I could have a working audiobook for my humanities students. It is one of my favorite Greek tragedies as it not only deals with the inseparable pair of Justice and Mercy, but it concerns our most dear possessions, natural rights. As Antigone is defending her choice to bury her brother Polynices against the corrupt law that forbade it, or rather, her tyrannical uncle, Creon’s law, I was reminded of the presentation I made to a group of amazing women in the Historic Provo Library recently. In preparing and paying the price to learn about rights, duties, the proper role of government, and Entitlements, I am astonished at how these ideas and principles have informed my thinking. I can find them now in my reading, in listening to the news, in raising my children, and in observing people and circumstances all around me. 

That day in my presentation, I defined and explained the four terms for the moms, and then we practiced together how to recognize rights and duties in the family rules. We then moved on to some social issues plaguing our system and looked at whether they pertained to rights, duties, or were they entitlements and what was the proper role of government in the issue. It was a satisfying experience for me as a bunch of moms discovered how to look at family and social issues considering the true principles of proper government.

Come with me as I briefly define these terms and explain them. I defined rights as God-given things “which justly belong to one.” Samuel Adams and James Madison said that the four basic rights are life, liberty, property, and conscience. Just to clarify each one, the right to life means that each individual has the right to stay alive. The right to liberty means that no individual will be in bondage to another. The right to property is that each has the right to their things, purchases, and things they’ve made or received.  Finally, each individual has the right to believe, live, and talk according to their conscience. So that which justly belongs to you and me is our right. No one can take them from us. We had them at birth and we will always inherently have these God-given rights, no matter what. People may try to take them from us, but we’ll still have a right to them.

These four basic rights make up the framework of our society. Ayn Rand said, “Individual rights are moral principles identifying the social conditions required by man’s nature for his proper survival.” She is saying that these rights lay down the foundation of our social condition and all laws are and should protect these rights. Look at little children and how they inherently know what is theirs. Observe two toddlers playing with toys and one takes the toy from the other and contention arises. The other defends his “property” and pleads his case to his mother, or he might breach the right of the one by hitting and kicking him. Mom steps in and gently teaches the right to life and the right to property. It is a natural tendency to protect rights whether you are two years old or 92.

Long ago there was a big debate at the founding of our nation about whether we should put our God-given rights into the constitution. You can read more about this debate in the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist Papers. The Anti-Feds wanted the rights set forth so the government would know what rights to protect. The Feds debated against them, saying that people might think it limited us to only those rights. There was a lot of back and forth in the compromise, and they all finally settled on a Bill of Rights listing 10 of them. Everyone agreed that these 10 were natural rights no matter what. The last one stated that all other rights not listed in the Constitution belonged to the states or the people.

You will notice when you look at the Bill of Rights each one of them falls under one or more of the basic rights. For instance, the right to worship falls under the right of conscience. We can believe how we desire to believe as long as we do not breach the right of any other person. You might see that this same right could fall under the right to liberty, meaning that you have a right not to be in bondage to another because of your beliefs. To summarize, the Bill of Rights became an extension or delineation of the four basic rights that each of us inherently has.

Now, let’s move on and define Duties. Duties are that which a person owes to another; that which a person is bound by a natural obligation to do. Our duties are in two parts: first, we are to help other people when needed to defend their rights, when we can (physically, mentally, emotionally, etc.) Second, we have a duty to not breach other people’s rights. The 1828 dictionary says we are to forbear “that which is forbidden by morality or justice.” Thomas Jefferson said of duties, “God has formed us moral agents... that we may promote the happiness of those with whom He has placed us in society, by acting honestly towards all, benevolently to those who fall within our way, respecting sacredly their rights, bodily and mental, and cherishing especially their freedom of conscience, as we value our own.” And Richard Maybury said, “Do all that you have agreed to do, and do not encroach on other people’s persons or their property.” By virtue of being a human, I have these four basic rights and my duty is to recognize that all other people do too; I am to defend rights and not breach the rights of others. Rights require duty, they are inseparable. Rights are basically a check on another person, they tell you what you can and cannot do to another. 

Now, when people want to be protected they form a society and grant power to the government to protect those rights. The Proper Role of Government is that it protects the rights of the people. The people who have created the government can only give power to the government from the powers they have themselves. What power do we give the government? Well, I have my rights and duties, and my duties are to protect rights. That power of protecting rights is the power I give to the government. 

Ezra Benson, a former US secretary of Agriculture says in his book, The Proper Role of Government, and I will paraphrase, said:

“The early pioneers found that much of their time and energy was being spent… defending themselves, their property and their liberty in what was called, ‘the lawless west.’ In order for people to prosper, they cannot spend all their time constantly guarding the family, the fields, and property against attack and theft. 

“So, they join together with their neighbors and hire a sheriff. And right then, Government is born. Each individual citizen delegates to the sheriff their unquestionable right to protect themselves. The key is: The sheriff now does for them only what they had a right to do for themselves—nothing more. 

“Now we come to the moment of truth. Suppose pioneer Bob wants another horse for his wagon, He doesn’t have the money to buy one, but since pioneer Dave has an extra horse, he decides that he is entitled to share in his neighbor’s good fortune, Is he entitled to take his neighbor’s horse? Obviously not! If his neighbor wishes to give it or lend it, that is another question. But so long as pioneer Dave wishes to keep his property, pioneer Bob has no just claim to it.

“So, If Bob has no proper power to take Dave’s property, can he delegate any such power to the sheriff? No. Even if everyone in the community desires that Dave give his extra horse to Bob, they have no right individually or collectively to force him to do it. They cannot delegate a power they themselves do not have.”

We need to remember that the government’s purpose is to protect rights, and that government is a force. Frederic Bastiat says that Law is a force. Why is he saying that? Because he is saying that anytime we make a law we have to put force behind it. That is what Law is. Why make a law if we will not enforce it? Whether it’s “drive the speed limit on the roads” or “what kind of marriage you can have,” they are all laws that humans make and they are enforced.

Now, it is wise to differentiate between governmental force and natural force. Governmental force is that each law has legal force behind it. Legally, you are held accountable to obey the laws or you receive the consequence. Natural force, on the other hand, is the consent of the governed. For example, laws around killing and taking property have my and your consent. When laws are outside the framework of Natural Rights, they don’t have a natural force anymore. We don’t feel compelled to obey them. When a law follows natural rights, the governed feel the law inherently in their hearts and they know it follows natural rights and it is obvious they want to obey it.

Another thing we need to consider while we think about the proper role of government is to differentiate between governmental principles and spiritual principles. We need to distinguish between what God is asking us to do and what the proper role of government is and what the government really has the power to do. For example, consider whether being loved is a right. If it were a right, then the government would have to pass laws around it and force people to love each other. If my husband did not love me and I had a right to be loved, he would be forced, by law to love me. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? Of course, being loved is not a right. However, it is a need, and it is something that God is asking us to do. Therefore, we separate our needs and our godly mandates, and we do not give power to the government to enforce those godly mandates.

Now that we have defined and explained rights, duties, and the proper role of government, let’s talk about the counterfeit of rights, which are entitlements.

Entitlements are the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment; unearned privileges that they don’t have a natural right to. A very easy example comes from our American history. Some Founders owned slaves and yet they knew slavery was against natural law and natural rights. The government they had formed was legally stating that slavery was okay. The whole business of it was complex because slavery was heavily intertwined into that society. Many were okay with it and thought they needed it. Many weren’t. Jefferson consistently spoke out against the international slave trade, and he outlawed it during his presidency. Step by step, it was eradicated and as you know the Emancipation Proclamation finally made slavery illegal. From then on, the progression continued to be a messy process until we got to where we are today. And we still have repercussions because of that horrible breaching of the four basic rights in our history. You can see from this example that the law gave privileges to men they had no natural right to. They forced the slaves to give up their natural rights to become property to their masters.

Government Entitlements are any laws or programs that violate one’s God-given rights in giving unearned privileges to another who has no right to it. Sometimes we and the government get confused and instead of the government protecting rights, it declares that people can take the property, take a life, or take away liberty, or legally force people to pay into a storehouse for redistributing. The tricky part is that entitlements surround us now. We even benefit from them and do not realize we are harming another’s rights.

In the same way that abolishing slavery was complex, entitlements in our day are equally complex. Our welfare system is huge and complicated and has created a lot of dependence. Since its nature is to redistribute wealth, it is an entitlement. It gives special privileges to others who do not have a right to them. We will not sort this out in this article, but what we have discussed today has given you the tools to discern rights, duties, and entitlements and to know what the proper role of government is.

Back to my study of Sophocles’ Antigone: she was devoted to Zeus. She had a right to conscience and believed in the laws of Zeus and not the tyrannical laws. The Ancient Greeks knew that each person ought to have a proper burial, but when Creon prohibited it, Antigone had a choice before her. Would she obey the tyrant or would she obey Zeus, who does not “ordain such laws for men”? Antigone confronted her contemptuous uncle accusing him of overriding the gods. Her courage and braveness to defend her rights was of no use; her right of conscience was breeched. Creon banished her from the kingdom to die an ignominious death. 

Oh, it gets me each time I read that play. I want to defend her rights; I want to stand up and make a case for her God-given right to conscience. But I can do better than that—we are not fictitious characters living in a fictitious world. We can learn these tools and observe how they are working in our lives. We can stand up and defend the rights of others, we can restore the proper role of government to the government and we can think of better ways to help our fellow man than resorting to entitlements. 

Do you realize the power you hold within you to understand and defend natural rights? The Founders understood and under the influence of the Great Creator, they established the most perfect union ever created on this earth, and all of it around the natural rights and natural laws of God. Discover them, apply them in your homes and in your communities, fight for them and watch the power that is in you to change the world for good!

Spheres of Influence, Connection, Purpose, and Truth

A number of years ago, an acquaintance of mine was heavily involved in political discussions on social media. Her entire life, it seemed, was filled with complaints about the other party, thoughts about the doom and gloom, and how corrupt the leadership was. She was the mother of several children and I observed that her children came second to her addiction on facebook. I often wondered how her ranting would influence those in political power. She and I discussed what she could do to make changes and her response was that she really could not influence those in the top, no matter what she did or said. Even so, she continued to “live” in what Stephen Covey calls the outer circles of influence. What was happening to those whom she could influence? They often were left to fend for themselves.

Where is the greatest impact a person can have on others? Often it is stated that a person can change the world, but can they really? The only people an individual can impact are themselves, their children, close family members, and friends. Or in other words, they can change only their small corner of the world through choice, influence, connection, and example. Stephen covey wrote, “The place to begin building any relationship is inside ourselves, inside our circle of influence, our own character.” Over those things, we have great power and influence. The power of individual influence increases significantly through connection, purpose, and truth when the individual focus is on the inner circle of influence.

A lack of true social connection affects everyone from the young to the very old. Many turn to anything that can satiate the pain whether it is social media, screens, drugs, alcohol, porn, shopping, or binge eating. Widespread loneliness and despair is on the rise. The BBC conducted a poll recently and found out of 55,000 people, 40% of adults between ages 16 and 24 reported feeling lonely often or very often. US suicide rates have increased by 33% between 1999 and 2017. What is causing the loneliness? A strong social connection causes the release of naturally occurring hormones that help us feel good. On the other hand, the lack of it disrupts that balance and lands the individual in a deficit; confused, lonely and unstable, they seek to fill the void with anything other than human connection such as social media, drugs, etc. It is a double-edged sword because the more they turn toward those things, the more they eclipse the true connection of human contact and connection. Those troublesome obstructions cause us to “see through a glass darkly,” and block out the warmth, the comfort, and the necessary relationships that bring hope. Neal A. Maxwell said, “When we draw other things too close, placing them first, we obscure our vision of heaven.” Jennifer Nicolaisen says, “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is genuine, meaningful interactions and authentic connections and experiences with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.”

The motive behind an incessant relationship with social media, screens, and all other distractions either closes or opens the door for meaning and purpose. I am not at all against technology for making connections, communicating, or self-educating. Personally, I have been engaged in some of the best discussions within the Great Conversation on Facebook. On the contrary, using technology to distract one from responsibility, or to compare lives, or to seek cheap advice leads some away from purposefulness toward aimlessness. What is your motive and drive to seek screen time? If distraction from life is your course, you may find you have wasted a day, a week, a month having accomplished little to nothing. Or you may feel depressed, anxious, and disengaged. Craig Mod said of social media, “I am firmly in the camp that believes technology is generally bending the world in a positive direction. Yet, for me, Twitter foments neurosis, Facebook sadness, Google News a sense of foreboding. Instagram turns me covetous. All of them make me want to do it—whatever “it” maybe—for the likes, the comments.” As one wakes up to the fact they depend upon the comments and likes to fuel or fizzle their emotional and mental energy, they realize they have been stuck in the drama triangle of victimhood, blame, comparison, and distraction. Mod continues, “I can’t help but feel that I am the worst version of myself, being performative on a very short, very depressing timeline. A timeline of seconds.” The way out is to check your motive for screen time; balance the best things with a little of the good things and do away with the bad things. Individuals who focus on the inner circle of influence and who want to impact their lives and those around them find meaning and purpose to guide them; they seek to tell themselves the truth.

The draw on society to engage in moral relativism or the “your truth, my truth” syndrome is prevalent. Debates on social media of what is true or not true, what is right or wrong has turned into a surplus of rancid non-judgment and decaying acceptance to the destruction of Truth. The good news is eventually, in the end, on any given issue, all things will be bound by truth. Natural law or the law of human nature has always existed and governed man. Thomas Reid said, “First-principles [or the laws of human nature] have been written by the finger of God on the very hearts of men.” J. Budziszewski confirms there is “a law written in the heart of every human being” and this could very well be described as the Light of Christ. The essence of the moral being is inseparably connected to truth. It is only when an individual suppresses or ignores their conscience that they lose sight of the truth. Suppressing conscience is like Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner who kills the albatross, killing truth and not being set free. Thus, being enslaved. On the other hand, telling oneself the truth, living in truth, and acting on truth results in a powerful influence on self and all those in their circle of influence.

Back to my friend; after years of fulminating on Facebook, she woke up to her fruitless situation and turned toward self-education. She not only has improved her life through the empowering principles but has opened her eyes and her arms to see and love her children. She has found much satisfaction turning toward her circle of influence, is making meaningful connections, and living life with purpose and truth.