“It Mattereth Not” — how to deal with your What If monsters.
This text was delivered to a congregation in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the summer of 2020 in Lehi, Utah.
The beginning of a child’s story begins like this:
“Some What if Monsters like to hang out, and fill up our heads with worry and doubt. They are sneaky and quiet and quick as a blink, the words that they whisper can change how we think. Jonathan James heard those words full of dread, and all those what ifs got stuck in his head.”
In the last 6 months or so, we’ve had our own What If monsters. Starting with our decision to move to Utah. These are some, but I bet you have some of your own:
- What if the house you bought is a dud?
- What if the lake were to flood?
- What if the job you took is a flop?
- And you wish you could go back in time and say “STOP!”
- What if the kids struggle to adjust in school?
- What if you can’t make friends and everyone’s too cool?
Then, like many of you, a series of unfolding events turned 2020 into a very memorable year. And while we all buckled down, the What If monster ran a victory lap and began a new anthem
- What if you never can leave your house?
- What if homeschooling fails because of you or your spouse?
- What if you or your parents contract the disease?
- What if an earthquake brings Utah to its knees?
- What if you’re racist and doing things all wrong?
- What if we’ll never get along?
- What if you lose your job, can’t find a job, can’t DO your job?
- What if there are days you just sit down and … sob?
The What If Monster is having a hay day. But just because something is possible, doesn’t mean it is probable.
Is it possible a meteorite will hit you tomorrow? Yes. Probable? No.
Is it possible that all those things the What If monster suggests to you every day will happen to the degree you most fear? Yes. Probable? Unless you are Job from the Bible, no.
And yet that question of uncertainty, that something MIGHT happen — it is real and it is painful.
Writing in Forbes magazine one psychologist shared this insight:
Studies show that you’re calmer in anticipating pain than anticipating uncertainty because pain is certain. Scientists have found that job uncertainty, for example, takes a greater toll on your health than actually losing the job. Study participants who knew for sure they would receive a painful electric shock felt calmer and less agitated than those who were told they only had a 50% chance of getting the electric shock.
Ever played the game Would You Rather? Let’s try a round.
- Would rather run a 10K or a race where the distance is not disclosed to you until the very moment you’ve completed that distance?
- Would you rather know with surety the date and time you’ll contract a well-known life-threatening disease? Or at an unknown time get a little-known disease for an unknown period of time?
- Would you rather know when your AC unit is going to go out? Or have the thing go out when its time has come?
A New Yorker article titled “Why We Need Answers” explains why most of you likely picked the more certain answers.
We want to achieve “cognitive closure.” This term was coined by the social psychologist Arie Kruglanski, who eventually defined it as:
“individuals’ desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity,” a drive for certainty in the face of a less than-certain world.
Remember that story of the Lamanite daughters getting abducted by the Priests of Noah? Maybe the Lamanites weren’t that different from how we might have behaved in assuming Limhi and his people were to blame, and they started a huge war and lost thousands of lives because of their need for cognitive closure.
The article goes on to explain:
The heightened need for cognitive closure can bias our choices, change our preferences, and influence our mood. In our rush for definition, we tend to produce fewer hypotheses and search less thoroughly for information. We become more likely to form judgments based on early cues, and as a result, become more prone to using first impressions as anchors for our decisions.
Our natural instinct is to use the very first thoughts and impressions of things (including our fearful What If Monster suggestions) as our anchor, or our reference point of reality. We crave cognitive closure, a firm answer that helps us navigate the chaotic mess of daily life. This craving I think only gets stronger the more disorder we are exposed to, including social media, the news, and so forth.
Anyone who has emerged from the rabbit hole of the Internet only to wonder why their house is still standing and people aren’t hiding under the beds knows what I mean!
A Whole New Mindset: It Mattereth Not
Another Game
Ok, let’s play another game: can you guess who these people are?
Person 1: “I am alone. My father hath been slain in battle, and all my kinsfolk, and I have not friends nor whither to go; and how long the Lord will suffer that I may live I know not.”
Person 2: Touch me not, for God shall smite you if ye lay your hands upon me, for I have not delivered the message which the Lord sent me to deliver; neither have I told you that which ye requested that I should tell; therefore, God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time … But I finish my message”
Person 3: He could not be restrained because of the Spirit of the Lord which was in him. For he did cry from the morning, even until the going down of the sun, exhorting the people to believe in God unto repentance … but they esteemed him as naught and cast him out, and he hid himself in the cavity of a rock by day, and by night he went forth viewing the things which should come upon the people. And as he dwelt in the cavity of a rock he made the remainder of this record, viewing the destructions which came upon the people, by night.
Moroni, Abinidi, and Ether (prophets of the Book of Mormon) are examples of prophets who faced some tough and very uncertain times. Times in which it seems beyond one’s normal ability to function.
For them, the probability of a terrible outcome was actually really high! For them, it was possible that all the bad things they could think of, all their What If monsters, were quite probable to occur.
What did they do and say? Can you identify the common phrase between these three?
Moroni: The Lord said unto me: If they have not charity it mattereth not unto thee, thou hast been faithful; wherefore, thy garments shall be made clean. And because thou hast seen thy weakness thou shalt be made strong, even unto the sitting down in the place which I have prepared in the mansions of my Father. (then he concludes) Therefore I will write and hide up the records in the earth; and whither I go it mattereth not. (Ether 12:37; Mormon 8:4)
Abinidi: God will not suffer that I shall be destroyed at this time … But I finish my message; and then it matters not whither I go, if it so be that I am saved. (Mosiah 13:3,9)
Ether: Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God . . . Whether the Lord will that I be translated, or that I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh, it mattereth not, if it so be that I am saved in the kingdom of God. Amen. (Ether 12:2–5 ; 13:13–14; 15:34)
The common phrase? “It mattereth not.” If we were to go back to our game of Would You Rather, these prophets likely would have cheated! Instead of the first or second option, they may have opted for a third: they may say “it doesn’t matter”.
How can they honestly say and believe that?
Prosper in the Land
Another Book of Mormon prophet and his missionary companion Amulek saw and experienced some pretty awful things in the city of Ammonihah. Interestingly enough, Alma choose one key promise to remind those people,
“Behold, do ye not remember the words which he spake unto Lehi, saying that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land? And again it is said that: Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord.” (Alma 9:13)
Prosper in the land.
Did Alma and Amulek prosper? What about Abinidi? I think it is a bit of a stretch to say Ether and Moroni were prospering. Can you hear the What If Monster? What if I keep the commandments… and I don’t prosper.
Let’s consider what prospering really means:
Elder Clayton in his address — The Finest Homes — explained:
God’s prosperity is the power to press forward despite the problems of life…This doesn’t mean the righteous won’t become ill, suffer accidents, face business reversals, or confront many other difficulties in life. Mortality always brings challenges, but time after time I have seen that those who strive to obey the commandments are blessed to find their way forward with peace and hope. Those blessings are available to everyone.
Some Latter-day Saint scholars also shared this insight into the term “prosper in the land”.
While prosperity is commonly associated with riches in today’s world, this is not what is meant by “prosper in the land.”
The parallel expressions “prosper in the land” and “cut off from [the Lord’s] presence” are clearly set up as opposites to each other. This indicates that prospering in the land is equivalent to having the Lord’s presence.
The specific Book of Mormon formulation of this promise clarifies that prospering is being blessed with the Lord’s strengthening and supporting presence, not simply in order to get rich or be successful.
Do you remember what Ether taught about anchoring?
… hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.
Think of that, our natural man’s instinct is to use the frenzy and very biased and often fearful first impression of things as the anchor for reality.
The Lord’s way is different.
What I find in Ether and the other prophet’s examples is their ability to anchor themselves in relation to God and ACT in faith, their obedience and belief in God then works as their reference point or anchor to the unknown all around them. Their desires are totally aligned with the first two great commandments, to love God and their neighbor. And this allows them to say to What If Monsters like the jeering King Noah and the hypothetical mocking gentiles: “it mattereth not”.
This ability to act rather than be acted upon in times of uncertainty comes first and foremost by understanding our true nature as children of God and covenant keepers, what President Nelson combined together into the term, “children of the covenant.” When we understand who we are, and the covenants we’ve made, we can turn to the Lord to work with us in making decided actions even in the midst of uncertainty, fear, and confusion.
Courageous Action
Consider this exchange between Piglet from Whinnie the Pooh stories with an Eastern religious writer (The Te of Piglet, p. 204). Piglet has recently composed a verse of song about how he is such a small animal and feels sort of hopeless and tiny. Essentially he is having a battle with his What If monsters. The author pushes back.
“If I might make a suggestion? …
Yes?
First of all, the fears that push you about are not legitimate, appropriate responses to What Is, such as warnings of danger ahead. Instead, they’re the constricting fantasies of What If: What if I should meet a Heffalump, or fall on my face, or make an utter fool of myself? Isn’t that true?
Yes, I suppose so.
I would suggest that the next time a What If starts badgering you, look it straight in the eyes and ask it, All right, what’s the very worst that could happen? And when it answers, ask yourself, What could I DO about it? Then you’ll see that you can have power in any situation. And when you realize that, the fears will go away.
They will?
Especially when you realize where the power comes from. In one way or another, we’re all Very Small Animals, and that’s all we need to be. So why worry about it? All we have to do is live in harmony with the Way, for the benefit of the world, and let its power work through us. Let IT do the work.
From this point we can do what Joseph Smith encouraged:
Let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed. D&C 123: 16
The Dalia Lama suggests a meditation along similar lines (p.316–317) that I think marvelously expands what it might mean to stand still and see the Salvation of God and for His arm to be revealed.
Now ask yourself, “Is my thought true? How do I know for sure? Does it help the situation?
For fear it can help to face the fear directly. You can think of the worst thing that could happen if your fear came true. Is it true that this outcome will definitely happen? How do I know for sure? Does my worry help the situation? Is there a better way of thinking about it or approaching the situation? …. When we turn and embrace what we fear, it loses its power to frighten us. We no longer need to fight it, but can instead work with it.
By first confronting our fears and getting out of the natural man instinct to use those immediate worries as our anchor for the world, we are then in a position of power to act.
Bishop Desmond Tutu adds:
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to act despite it.” The English word courage comes from the French word coeur, or hear; courage is indeed a triumph of our heart’s love and commitment over our mind’s reasonable murmerings to keep us safe. (The Book of Joy p. 94–95)
Nephi felt small and probably was frequently afraid. Imagine the uncertainty of wandering the desert for 8 years. The suffering and difficulty with that is hard for me to understand. But Nephi was anchored in his relationship to God as a child of the covenant, he chose to act in faith, and that hopeful and courageous decision became the means to release his worries of the uncertain outcome of his wandering — to the Lord.
O lord, I have trusted in thee and I will trust in thee forever . . . The rock of my righteousness. (2 Ne 4:20–35:)
As Elder Uchtdor said See the End from the Beginning:
“We don’t always know the details of our future. We do not know what lies ahead. We live in a time of uncertainty. We are surrounded by challenges on all sides. If you trust the Lord and obey Him, His hand shall be over you, He will help you achieve the great potential He sees in you, and He will help you to see the end from the beginning.”
Let’s return to Jonathan James in that kids’ book from the beginning.
“Now wait just a minute! I have something to say, after hearing “what ifs” all through the day. I hear all your worries; I hear all your claims. But what if you're wrong?” asks Jonathan James.
As courageous, God-trusting saints we can face our uncertainties and fears and discover our own power to present new What Ifs.
- What if you’re welcomed to Utah with dinner and love?
- What if your neighbor is a generous genius about all kinds of homeowner stuff?
- What if you’re invited over to visit and eat with others
- And your kids meet children with amazing fathers and mothers?
- What if your family learns to be more patient and kind?
- And this pandemic leaves you closer so that none are left behind?
- What if another neighbor lends you a fan for weeks
- While another replaces the AC, along with some tweaks?
- What if God loves you and sent His only Son
- To show you and help you become with him — truly one
Our What If monsters can be silenced — or actually converted — by anchoring our reality in truth as we understand who we are as God’s covenant children, confront our fears with faith and trust in God, and take courageous action in following Him.
If we do this, I know we can with the prophets of old say with confidence and peace to all our What If Monsters — “It Mattereth Not, I know in whom I have trusted” and truly prosper in the land.
