OverComing the Natural Man

“How pitiful a sight is a man who is strong in many ways but who loses all control of himself when some little thing, usually of no significant consequence, disturbs his equanimity.” Pres Gordon B Hinckley SM pg 332

This is a sad thing to see these days, that men and boys who are strong often succumb to the idea that their strength gives them right or influence over others. Then when things do not go how they envisioned or in complete noncompliance to their will they explode in a rain of uncontrolled negative energy that brings pain and sadness to those they hurt. I was once like this and I found and discovered the source of this anger, and subsequently was able to overcome it. It is sourced in video games. The purpose in a video game is instant gratification for accomplishing a task; most of which center around violence. When one plays on a regular basis they come to believe that to when they do something they should be rewarded for it, this is a very selfish idea. When the rewards do not come they get frustrated and turn to what does give them this gratification, video games. Eventually the frustration with real life causes small outbursts of anger in which they get the attention that they desire. This in turn leads to a reinforcement of the belief that since violence in the video game worked to get rewards and the couple of times that anger, which is a form of violence, worked to get a reward, that what is true in video games must be true in life. So this leads to further outbursts in a spiral of destruction that can bring much sorrow and pain to those that they love. Having experienced this cycle I can say that nothing is further from the truth and that to overcome the natural man takes a lot of prayer and time. Time because that is the element that they disbelieve in, preferring instant results to patience and persistence to accomplish tasks, and prayer because I don’t think that it can be done without God.