Posted by:
mightybuffalo
(
)
Date: May 23, 2018 06:38PM
My wife and I parked at a movie theater the other night and as we started to get out of the car I got a text message from work. Simultaneously she started to ask: do you consider all of the positive things that have happened to you-- then I cut her off to say just one sec as I was responding (pretty horrible attention span so I feel bad when people ask waste a breath asking me something I'll need repeated).
After the text I said, pardon me? To which she again stated the first part, then interjected herself and said never mind. I pressed once but it was obvious she had changed her mind about asking whatever it was.
I assume (probably incorrectly) that she was about to ask me if I considered the positive things that have emerged in my life since my leaving the church as confirmations to me that I was doing the right thing.
The reason for the assumption is because I have had some REALLY good things happen since then-- I was accepted to 3 med schools, I was made the captain of the BYU rugby team (never shared this before because I was still at BYU), I got an incredible promotion at work (the reason why I'm in California), and everything else has just been peachy.
Now that perspective is different than something my folks questioned me about in front of my DW, last we chatted, which was "why would God support you leaving the church if it causes this much heartache and strain for your marriage?"
She may have been talking about something completely different, and I don't want to try to over analyze a conversation that didn't happen.
What I am curious about is the "fruit" card. We all tend to do that a little. When something good happens we tend to attribute it to something we did right before the good thing happened. When something bad happens we try to blame something bad that we did.
Why do we do that? Why is it so prevalent among TBM's? How does one move beyond this primitive mentality? I do not mean to offend, but I have read studies where even mice or pigeons develop superstitions similarly, hence calling it primitive. Thoughts?