A few years ago, I grabbed a book off of my dad's bookshelf called "The End of Eternity" written by none other than the great father of science fiction Isaac Asimov.
The story in the book revolves around a group of men who discovered a way to travel through time. They found a way to construct a place inside of a kind of time bubble, a place they called Eternity, from which they could travel back and forth through time as they wished, and visit any era of human history; past, present, or future. They were known as the Eternals, men who never grew old, observing the course of human history from afar in Eternity. However, these men did more than just watch. They realized that through small actions in the right place at the right time, they could change things, and avert many of the terrible things that would happen throughout the course of human history. If they could effect a small change in a critical moment, they could alter the entire course of the human race. They could stop wars, avert diseases, and protect the human race from any malady at any point in history, be it the far past or the distant future. They themselves remained immune from the changes, safe in Eternity, and so they became the guardians of humanity from all her afflictions, throughout all time.
This sounds like an ideal situation, right? Humanity continued on throughout the ages, and if anything bad ever happened, the Eternals would simply travel to a point in time before that bad thing happened and stop it from ever happening. So, thanks to the Eternals, nothing bad would ever happen. No wars, no diseases, nothing. No trials, no difficulties, no hard challenges to overcome.
However, something happened that the Eternals didn't expect. The main character, who is an Eternal, travels to the far, far, distant future, farther than any Eternal had ever gone, and discovers that after a hundred thousand years, the human race had died out. Humanity had stagnated, and eventually withered and rotted and died, despite, and actually because of, the Eternals. Due to their intervention, humanity never had to face difficulties or challenges. It never had to figure out how to overcome anything, and because of that, it lost all of it's inventiveness, creativity, and innovation, and most importantly, all sense of purpose. Humanity could never aspire to achieve anything, because thanks to the Eternals, it never had anything to overcome. Because of this lack of opposition, humanity could never grow or develop, or ever really do anything of significance. It just sat there and rotted away in it's idleness and purposelessness.
When the Eternals took away all of the challenges and difficulties from humanity, they took away all of the motivation and opportunity for humanity to grow and progress as well.
What if, like the Eternals, we had the power to control our own fates? What if we could, with a wave of our hand, as it were, make all of the wars in the world go away? Or make all of the diseases in the world go away? Or the poverty, or suffering, or injustice and inequality? Or, on a more personal level, what if we could make it so that we never suffered the untimely loss of a loved one? Or if we could make it so that we would never get in an accident while driving? Or suffer health problems? Or lose our jobs? Or that we would never have troubles in our relationships? What if we could make it so that we would never have to go through anything hard? Would we?
I think that alot of us, if not all of us, would. At least to some extent. I mean, given the choice, why on earth would we ever choose to get in a car accident? Or get sick? Or go through a divorce? Or lose someone we love? Why would we ever choose pain and hurt and suffering? We wouldn't.
Unfortunately, like the human race in the book, without our trials and challenges and struggles, we would also stagnate and wither. Our pains and our difficulties are what motivate us to learn and grow and develop, and become better. If we never face opposition in life, we can never achieve anything. If we never have to struggle, it seems that there's no point to us being here.
However, as long as the reins are in our hands, we won't steer our lives into pain and suffering. It's human nature to avoid pain where possible. Like I said, given the opportunity, who wouldn't make it so that their loved ones never suffered untimely deaths?
It's also a human tendency to always take the path of least resistance, or the easiest way. The main character of Asimov's novel realizes this, and comes to understand that as long as humanity (or at least a segment of it, namely the Eternals) had control over it's own fate, it would always choose the least difficult path. It would always choose the path of least resistance, avoiding challenges and difficulties as much as possible. As long as humanity didn't have to face these difficult things, it would never grow and develop. It would only rot and wither, as he had seen.
Fortunately, the main character decides that it's better for humanity to face challenges and learn and grow because of them, so he destroys Eternity and the Eternals, and the control that they have over humanity's fate. Well, he actually just goes back in time to before time travel was discovered and Eternity was created, and makes it so that time travel never is discovered, so that the Eternals never are formed, and all of the changes that they had made to history were undone. He also sets off a chain of events that ensures that humanity will continue to grow and develop, albeit through overcoming difficult challenges and trials, and learning painful lessons.
Coming from an LDS perspective, it's kindof cool to realize that this same issue came up in the council we all had with God in the premortal world, and it's even cooler to realize that each one of us here decided not to take the path of least resistance by choosing Lucifer's plan, but rather to come here to earth and pass through the pain and suffering, and learn and grow in the process and eventually return to God and become like him. We all made the right choice, even though it was hard. Props for us!
Still, God knows we're weak, and that even though we each chose to come here, we might still try to avoid the pain. That's why he doesn't give us complete control over our lives, because like we discussed before, given the choice, it would be very tempting for us to avoid the difficult things in life, and if we did chose to not go through those things, we wouldn't learn the things that God wants us to, which is kind of the point of coming to earth in the first place.
So, I guess that's why God doesn't let us decide all of the things that happen to us in life. Still, I think it's a very thought-provoking question that we should all ask ourselves: If you had the power to remove the bad or difficult things from your life, would you?
---I'm open for any comments or thoughts, so if you have anything you want to say, please don't hesitate.
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