To stand alone

I just watched Moneyball this week, the second outstanding Brad Pitt movie I've seen this year (other one was indie flick; Tree of Life). What I liked most about the film was its metaphoric depiction of taking the road less traveled. It combined a lot of thoughts on my mind which I'll share...

To sum up Moneyball in a paragraph - A's general manager, Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) sees the gap between Oakland A's low budget and the MLB's status-quo drafting/trading methodology. He recruits a baseball economist and together come up with a statistical method of buying undervalued players, essentially creating a team of misfit toys. Beane is criticized by all his old school agents and counseled to just recruit the time-trusted way and accept that the A's will not be an outstanding team. He bucks the naysayers and pushes ahead with the new strategy. At first it appears the team is failing, but eventually they gain confidence and go on to break the record for most consecutive wins in a season and nearly make the playoffs. Beane's statistical approach is adopted by the Red Sox, helping them break the curse of the Bambino and revolutionizing how baseball teams are managed.

I loved how Beane was able to see a gap and come up with an outstanding strategy, dismissing cynical naysayers throughout stages of planning and implementation. Mediocrity abhors excellence because it threatens status-quo established power houses. I'm reminded of the Fountainhead when Howard Roark is constantly persuaded to architect common greco-roman structures that have mass appeal instead of his "obscure", functional designs. Roark is criticized for refusing to compromise his designs, just like Beane is criticized for not budging on his strategy.

Think of how much guff early innovators of world-improving products, methods and ideas received. Steve Jobs (did it the apple way and bucked PC, pioneered integrative tech toys), W. Edwards Deming (took his productivity models to Japan after being rejected in the states, revolutionized modern industrial processes), Nelson Mandela (suffered like many civil rights leaders and spearheaded political change in apartheid South Africa), Joseph Smith (stayed true to his claim of divine visitations from God and was killed for his witness, founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), and Jesus Christ (Son of God, wouldn't balk to apostate Sanhedrin, crucified to appease a mob, provided means of salvation to all mankind) are a random handful that come to my mind.

To be genius is to stand alone sometimes. You may think, "Well, I'm no genius, I'm just an average Joe and I'm fine with that."You are right, most of us are pretty common. Not withstanding, I believe there is genius in all of us because we are all children of God. We all have the light of divinity within our common mortal shell. When our divine destiny shines through, our unique genius - our spiritual genetic makeup from Heavenly parentage - is manifest. The daunting task is to let this light shine when all around us is darkness. To stand as a witness.

A modern prophet, Thomas S. Monson, gave an address last weekend entitled "Dare to Stand Alone". He said, "May we ever be courageous and prepared to stand for what we believe, and if we must stand alone in the process, may we do so courageously, strengthened by the knowledge that in reality we are never alone when we stand with our Father in Heaven." Then he invited us to "... follow the Savior’s instruction to us, found in the book of 3 Nephi: 'Hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do.' "

How can we let our own genius, our light shine if Christ is the light? The majority says, "I do my own thing and follow my own path." Is this not one's individual genius? The scriptures teach otherwise in 1 Corinthians 6 :19-20, saying "...ye are not your own... For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's." It is egregious pride to deny the source of our genius. His light is our light. We may reflect a unique spectrum as His light hits us, but make no mistake, He is the light.

The best way to magnify our light and genius is to obey God's commandments. The Strength of Youth pamphlet says when you keep God's standards "...the Lord will make much more out of your life than you can by yourself. He will increase your opportunities, expand your vision, and strengthen you. He will give you the help you need to meet your trials and challenges. You will find true joy as you come to know your Father in Heaven and His Son, Jesus Christ, and feel their love for you."

Soooo, back to standing alone and baseball and all. Billy Beane made a winning team out of very little $ by picking the misfit toys. He knew their stats and saw through popular opinion that these were high value players. He made unpopular choices to recruit these guys and stuck by them until they had confidence in already existent talent. Can you see the parallel? Christ picks us to be on His team when the world tells us we are worthless. He shows us our divine birthright and continues to believe in us even when we forget who we are, until we have confidence through Him to be our best, most successful selves.

He stood alone, and hung alone, because He loves us, because He loves you. He picks you. Now will you pick him? Will you stand alone to the world, with Him by your side?