Some of you (I know from your letters) are getting a little anxious for the Three Alternatives that I have promised — alternatives to the Three Deceivers. Others of you are getting a little tired of me trying, week after week, to totally convince you that Control, Ownership, and Independence are deceivers and can do you harm (this group is not going to buy it until you see the alternatives and become convinced that they are better).

Still others (most of you actually, based on the numbers of feedback emails I have received) are with me on the deception of CO&I and are simply ready for the Three Alternatives.

So, many readers will be happy to know that D-day (publication day, unveiling day, revealing day) for the Three Alternatives is coming very soon — on May 4 to be exact. This current column is the last one that will be spent dissing CO&I, and I will try to make the strongest arguments yet on their dangers and deceptions before I will rest my case. Then the columns on April 20 and April 27 will be transition columns, creating the framework for shifting our attitudes and our perspectives from the Three Deceivers to the Three Alternatives. (These columns will use many of the ideas and suggestions you have sent in concerning what would replace the three deceivers.)

And then on May 4 we will present the Alternatives, introduce them, and begin to explain how and why they can change how we think about and how we live almost every aspect of our lives. After May 4, this column will be called "The Three Alternatives" and will explore, one by one, what each Alternative is and how it works (within the Gospel) as a paradigm for seeing and appreciating and making sense of the world.

Good Economics, Bad Life

As stated in an earlier column, Ownership is the basic and foundational principle of a free enterprise economic system, and is the motivation that makes it work. Control and Independence are involved and related. In fact, a good definition of economics, as far as I am concerned, is the study of money (ownership) and its manipulation (control and independence). We live in a world that is obsessed with these things, and viewed, by most people, through an economic lens.

Control fits well and factors into both the macro and micro economic model. The Fed controls interest rates, Government tries to control fiscal and monetary policy, Individuals try to control spending and cash flow. Control is a good economic objective.

Independence is often the goal within the economic model. "Financial independence" is a term we throw around a lot and all think we want, even though none of us can quite define exactly what it might entail — some combination of unlimited resources and limited needs, I suppose, instead of the opposite (which is what we all seem to have).

So CO&I are very useful and perhaps very desirable economic concepts, though even when confined to economic definitions they create win-lose competition, envy, jealousy, and pride. The real problem with them comes when they "run over the economic banks" (excuse the pun) and spill into our standard for the bigger picture, and even for our spiritual perspective. If we think we own our house and our car, it’s too easy to think we own our kids, or our callings, or our opportunities — or the many other things that can be owned only by God.

Why CO&I is the Perfect Formula for Unhappiness in Today's World

Unhappiness could be defined as working hard for something, only to discover that it can never be completely achieved and that even the part we do achieve is empty and hollow. The stories are so old that they are almost clichés. Envision someone working so hard to possess something, thinking that it will bring him happiness, only to find that he has traded his real chance at happiness for it — or desperately seeking independence, only to find loneliness and isolation — or trying to control things that can't be controlled and being driven nuts by it.

At the heart of the deception is the false claim that CO&I are the conditions that bring happiness. Actually, the opposite is true. By obsessing over CO&I, we set up the very conditions that insure ever greater unhappiness. We stress and then overload ourselves because of the illusion of ownership. We isolate and harden ourselves trying for independence. And we fool ourselves into frustration by trying to control everything.

The times we live in make us so susceptible to the three deceivers. In earlier, more agrarian times, our dependence on God and interdependence on each other was more apparent. Big, uncontrollable things, like the weather, were more apparent to us and affected us more. And there were not nearly as many "things" in our lives that we could think that we owned.

Today, with our sophistication and our isolation from nature, and within our cocoon of technology and artificial environments, it becomes easier to think that we independently own and control things. The very artificiality of our world enhances the deception and multiplies our unhappiness.

"Wrong" as in False

A couple of columns ago, we discussed that wrong could be defined as morally wrong (bad) or as factually wrong (false). To one who believes in Heavenly Father's plan of happiness and in the Restoration, CO&I are simply and eternally false concepts. We own nothing (except perhaps our agency). We control nothing (except perhaps, someday, ourselves). And we are independent of nothing in an eternal life where we all affect each other.

It is important to see "things as they really are" if we are to become the true children of God who perceive both the possibility and the difficulty of returning to Him. The great gift of the restoration is the insights it gives to who we really are, and what our relationship to each other and to God really are. These divine insights tell us (and make us so thankful that we know) that we are anything but independent, anything but in control, and anything but owners. God is those things. We are His children. This is His plan. Because of it and because of His Son, the great implementer, we can return.

Thus we celebrate the great truth of His Control, His Independence, and His Ownership of all. From that perspective, we begin to see what and who we are and begin to see why loving Him and returning to Him is the goal.

Wrong because they Separate us from God

It has been said that the best definitions of "right" and "wrong" is that Right brings us closer to God and Wrong further separates us from God. When you think you own something, it separates you a bit more from He who owns all. When you think you control something, it separates you a bit more from He who controls all. And when you think you are independent, it separates you a little from He on whom you depend. Humility is a quality that draws us closer to Him, and the illusion of CO&I is destructive to humility and constructive to pride.

What we are all looking for, in the Three Alternatives, is insight — new and better ways to look at the world, at other people, and at ourselves. Since this column started 10 weeks ago, I have received hundreds of thoughtful emails from Meridian readers outlining what they think the Three Alternatives are. I have learned from these letters. I have adjusted my own thinking in many ways because of their ideas and thoughts. I have learned that the Gospel leads us all in the same directions and unites us in our feelings and in what "rings true."

Next column will be devoted to a sample selection of some of your letters, your guesses, proposals, and ideas for what to call the Three Alternatives (and how to define them). To those of you who have ideas you have not yet sent in, email me by Monday so I can include your inputs and insights.

To take a guess on what The Three Alternatives are, or to express your ideas or feedback, write to Richard@meridianmagazine.com As you make your own search for the Three Alternative, or as you send them in to me, remember that they must preserve all of the good aspects of CO&I (initiative, discipline, responsibility and so on) but eliminate all of the negative aspects (judgment, jealousy, conceit, presumption, envy, covetousness, and other deceiving and damaging qualities). The Three Alternatives must draw us closer to God rather than distancing us from Him.

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