liz3564 wrote:Dr. W. wrote:For him it was not worth the price. I cannot blame him, except to note if one is not willing to be honest with oneself in this life, then they cannot expect to live it to the fullest.
Please give your definition of "living life to the fullest". Your friend has a good family, a well-paying job he enjoys, friends, community....that sounds like "living life to the fullest" to me.
My friend is a great guy. Although I don't believe I said as much, he does have a great wife and a good family. He and his wife have pretty much everything they planned for, except for the fact that (at least) one of their children left the Church. His wife is having a hard time accepting the fact. I think this causes his wife a great deal of anguish because their "eternal" family will not be complete. There is little doubt that the time that my friend spent away from his 8 children as a Bishop and then as a Stake President was a factor in the problems that his children had. I think he regrets the time he did not spend with his family because of his Church callings.Were she not so tied up in the Mormon delusion, I think the wife would have been able to and accept her "wayward" child and respect his decision.
Let's talk for a minute about another very good scientist who is my business partner. He also, at one time, was a very prominent member of the LDS Church and worked with President Monson. He had a shelf, but never imagined that it would break.
Then his very talented son, after returning from an honorable mission overseas, came out as gay. This father and his wife (and all of the rest of the grown children in the family) made the decision to support their son rather than the Church, which turned its back on the son in very short order. Once the family realized what life would really be like for them and their gay son in the Church, they all left the Church, pretty much from one day to the next.
As a consequence of this decision, one of the other sons lost his TBM wife. Even with all of this wrenching social change in their lives, the entire family is doing very well and are happier than they have ever been. The father and his now divorced son both tell me that that enjoy life a lot more since leaving the Church. Among the immediate benefits was an extra free day on the weekend, a 10% increase in salary, and the right to drink healthy green tea.
And, most importantly, they are a family. They have each other's back 100%.
Another contrast: while my Stake President friend's family stayed in one place and waited for their father to be released from his Church callings so they could go on weekend trips and live life again (they have been in the same home for more than 20 years), my family and the family of my business partner were traveling and living overseas, learning about other cultures, seeing the world as it really is and having all kinds of adventures.
I hope that these two examples are a suitable response to your question.
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ETA:
Perhaps a full life is a life free of unfounded belief and useless delusion, wherein one has an empty shelf (or no shelf at all) and does not feel restricted or afraid of doing the things that are of greatest benefit to one's self, one's family and society as a whole.