Poor brazenasian...

left to rot in the vault of forgotten blogs. You know you've got something real with your blog when you feel pangs of guilt for not writing or frequenting its site often enough.

I've been keeping myself busy with non-bloggy things like looking for jobs, applying for jobs, and interviewing for aforementioned jobs. I had an interview last Monday and I am preparing for one tomorrow. There was so much trepidation surrounding my move back to Las Vegas and the subsequent job search in a city with 13% unemployment. My brother constantly reminded me of the daunting statistic and urged me to stay in Provo. I've always been one to throw caution to the wind. I call it faith or idealism, others would probably call it sheer stupidity. Whichever it is, I am happy that I cured my case of indecisiveness and decided to move back to Las Vegas. If one of the greatest gifts we are given is agency, we shouldn't hesitate to employ it. Yes, this is one of my new year's resolutions: to use my agency more actively; not only use my agency but be completely satisfied and content with the decision that was made.

My dear friend Jennie Yri wrote a very well-worded post on agency. I am reposting it here because she truly encapsulates my thoughts in her writing, it doesn't hurt that she incorporates a Matrix quote...how I do love the Matrix series. One day I will employ her as my personal ghostwriter.

Because I choose to
Jennie Yri (click on her blog link on the far right to read more)

The words of Neo in the final Matrix movie are somewhat immortal to me. They go with other timeless quotes such as "To thine own self be true". And they get at something that I think is at the heart of our very existence. The backdrop is Agent Smith fighting him, with mind as well as body. He has throughout the whole triology been telling Neo that "It is inevitable". And it culminates in this moment:

Agent Smith: Why, Mr. Anderson, why, why do you persist?

Neo: Because I choose to.

Because I choose to. These are the words that ring out and stand as a banner for everything we are and everything we can be. It is the admission that in everything we do there is, or at least at one time, there was a choice. We cannot control the world around us. We cannot stop the winds and the storms, we cannot stop the sun from rising, or force it to rise, but in ourselves, we are our masters. We choose what we do. This is the powerful gift, the divine gift of agency.

The whole point of the atonement is to give us the ability to raise from the ashes from our own bad decisions. It is to give us greater freedom to choose, and that one bad decision will not ruin our lives and destroy our ability to choose forever, but as we cling to that, that we may gain greater and greater freedom. If you look at any command the Lord has given, what appears to be a restriction upon closer inspection is a protection of that divine right to choose, a guide to help people stay away from those things that destroy agency, that impair choice.

It is not inevitable. Nothing is inevitable. We can choose, and we can repair our impairment to choose through the atonement. The consequences of our decisions are natural. Certain choices lead to certain consequences. The choice is the decision in the first place. We can choose anger and bitterness. We can choose strife. We can choose to love. We can choose to hate. Every moment of every day, we have a choice. Nothing is inevitable. We are who we are, we do what we do, because we choose to.