The Dip and Becoming

This week was an interesting one, lead off by the completion and reflection upon the book The Dip by Seth Godin. This book took me a little off guard, especially in the beginning when I didn't yet know much about the premise of the book. But ultimately, the book is about quitting. It’s about learning to quit the right things at the right times. It also gives advice and pointers on identifying when you are quitting for the wrong reasons and are making a bad decision.

I also really liked the principle Godin taught about the cul-de-sac. This “dead end” is when you find yourself in a job that’s going nowhere. There is nowhere to grow and you’re bored. Godin says that for a person with drive and talent, you can’t afford to waste your time and energy at a job that isn't taking you anywhere. You could be learning and growing at an incredible pace if you would just get out of the one that’s holding you back and go find the job you were meant to do.

I felt like this also had similar notes to Elder Oakes' talk “The Challenge to Become.” He emphasizes the importance of not just doing but becoming that which we should be. He used an awesome parable about a man who had amassed a large fortune in his life through diligent work and an honest living. He knew that he could not simply pass it all on to his son because his son did not yet have the knowledge and experience to handle the inheritance wisely. So, the father told his son he could only have the inheritance once he had become the man that the father is. To help him in his journey he gave him all of the rules and principles upon which he had patterned his life and gained his knowledge and wisdom. The son was then able to live as the father had and learn as he had, to eventually become as he was and receive the inheritance.

Obviously this has direct application to our eternal progression and made me think a lot about how our Heavenly Father created this whole plan so that we could learn and grow in the exact same way that he did so we could eventually become like him and inherit all that he has.

Relating this all back to the cul-de-sac, if we aren't becoming that which we desire to eventual be, what are we doing it for? If we aren't growing and developing into the kind of person and employee we want to be, then we need to move on to something else. We are wasting valuable time, wading in the knee deep waters of mediocrity when we should be swimming in the profound pools of progression.