If you are a loyal, zealous Witness, please listen to me.
I'm going to tell you straight from my heart, right out of
my hard-won personal experience, how to avoid unhappiness.
Here it is:
Don't bet on games you can't win.
Let me illustrate. Are you an elder? Do you want to be one?
Take a good look at the guys you know who are elders. What do
you see? I saw burned-out old men, barely doing anything.
I saw guys who couldn't hold a good job (not enough education).
I saw bad marriages, broken marriages, neglected kids,
neglected wives, stress-related illnesses, misery caused by
demanding C.O.'s, corrupt congregational politics, you name
it amoung the elders.
But I was gonna be different.
I was gonna be Gary Cooper in "High Noon". I was gonna set
things right. I was gonna make the meetings interesting.
I was gonna stand up for the weak. I was gonna correct the
C.O.
I was a fool.
You can't beat the odds. Everything regresses to the mean.
You end up no different than the rest of them. Count yourself
lucky if you still have a good marriage or moral children after
ten years of this.
Do you want to be a pioneer? Look around - are the pioneers
burned out - faking it? Are they looking for an honorable way
to quit? Do the elders want you to pioneer, while avoiding it themselves? Think before you commit to anything.
Are you trying to raise kids "in the truth"? Look around -
what percentage of kids leave the organization in your locale?
50? 70? 90 percent? Are you so arrogant or foolish as to think
that you can beat these kind of odds? (I was!)
EVEN IF YOU DO EVERYTHING THE SOCIETY TELLS YOU TO DO, it still
may turn out wrong if the elders are quietly corrupt in your
hall. Do you really think little Johnny is so stupid that he
doesn't realize that the elders' kids get off scot-free while
Sister Nobody's kids are df'd in the blink of an eye? Will this
encourage Johnny to think the organization is a farce? ( again,
my first-hand experience here, folks!)
...and lets not even get into the subject of covering up child
sexual abuse - and what that can do!
On the positive side, you can invest your time showing REAL love
to your wife and family. You CAN get a decent education. You CAN
get a reliable, good paying job (did you know almost HALF of
all IT jobs go vacant and that salaries commonly get bid up,
higher and higher?).
In short, you can enjoy life (that's life's only purpose)
But you're not going to find happiness beating your head against
a wall, fighting impossible odds, getting burned out, while
the Society, the C.O., and other shrill voices demand more
and more of THE PRECIOUS CURRENCY OF YOUR LIFE!
Don't bet on games you can't win
Stay happy,
metatron