Once Upon A Time: Lessons Learned Sunday

Sunday night from 7:00 – 8:00 is one of my favorite hours of the week. I get to escape from my reality to a wonderful TV show that is beyond brilliant. I get to go on adventures, experience complex emotions, laugh and cry, cheer and scream, and just get out of my world for a little bit. I have learned so many life lessons during this time and this past Sunday’s episode was no different. There were so many things that happened in this episode that are parallels to life, that are lessons that I needed to learn, and many profound statements that are important for me to apply in my life. 

"Snow, you can't let the fear of failure keep you from trying." This is something that I think is profound. In a devotional given at BYI-Hawaii, Elder Bryant H. Neilson of the Seventy spoke about fear and faith. 

"Their biggest challenge seems to be fear—fear of the future, fear of failure, fear of not knowing who they are or what they can become. I have learned a very important lesson. In the gospel of Jesus Christ, fear is the opposite of faith. If you have fear, faith diminishes, but if you have faith, fear diminishes.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we need have no fear. We need not fear death, because we have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His gift of the Resurrection. We need not fear what man can do to us, because we know that if God is with us and if we have faith in Jesus Christ, we can accomplish whatsoever thing is expedient to His work (see Moroni 7:33). We need not fear the future, because we know that as we keep the commandments, the Lord will bless us.

Paul teaches, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7). We move forward with faith in God the Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ.

If we eliminate fear, we can get out of the roundabouts that stop our progress and keep us from reaching our divine potential." 

This spoke to me. I remember being afraid to open up about myself, to allow people to get to know the real me. I was afraid of what people would think if they really knew me. I was afraid to allow people to truly know me because I was afraid to admit to myself a lot of things. It took a lot of faith and spiritual promptings, but faith replaced my fear and I came to realize that I shouldn’t have been afraid for so long. When I finally did allow myself to be real, to be authentic, and to come out, I found that people didn’t really seem to care. The fear of, “What will people think or say if they know I am gay?” was holding me back from progressing in my life. This fear of failure, or fear of being thought of as a failure, was keeping me from creating important and lasting relationships, keeping me from meeting people who have been incredible blessings in my life, and keeping me from allowing myself to reach my full potential. This fear was keeping me from having the faith to step into the dark, to step into the unknown, and to allow myself to love myself as God loves me, and to allow myself to feel love from others. Fear can be a very debilitating thing, and if we can allow ourselves to replace it with faith, as difficult and challenging as it may be, the blessings come and we can find joy. Although I am not perfect or an expert in the subject (I still have a lot of fears, but I am working on that), I can promise that there IS hope that comes from replacing fear with faith. 

"You see? If I hadn't failed I never would have figured out how to succeed." Failure is just a part of life. Everyone will go through life and experience failure in some form or another. Educationally, professionally, in relationships, in a sport, musically, or whatever, failure will happen. As much as I hate to admit it, I have failed so many times. I have failed in relationships, failed in accomplishing my goal of being an ASL interpreter, failed in my new years resolutions, etc., but that is okay. BYU President Kevin J. Worthen said in a campus devotional, “Failing is an essential part of the mortal phase of our quest for perfection. … How we respond when we fail will ultimately determine how well we will succeed.” I think that this is a very true statement and goes perfectly with what Hercules was saying on my show. What do we do when we “fail?” How do we respond to these setbacks? Do we let the failure limit us? Do we let the failure halt our progression? I am not so perfect at this, but I also have seen that when I take the failures as a learning experience I grow and mature and come closer to becoming the man that my Heavenly Father wants me to be. For example, my patriarchal blessing tells me that, “If you ask earnestly Kevin, you will be directed to a career that will not only give you joy, but provide a loving service to your fellow man.” Growing up I had figured that this meant I was going to be an ASL interpreter. I just knew it. I jumped through hoop after hoop to be able to take ASL at a different High School (I went to West Jordan for 7 classes and Copper Hills for 1), fought to recover from 5 different wrist surgeries, dealt with the unbearable pain of it, and grew to love the language and culture so much. Then I had to come to terms with the fact that after planning my whole life, 2 years of High School, and 4 semesters of college that it just wasn’t in the cards for me and I had to deal with the fact that my career plans were basically a failure. I had to change my path and it was rough. I felt like a failure because my whole life I had been planning on this, but God had other plans for me and my earnest prayers WERE answered and I was lead to a career that I truly love with skills that I have had to develop. I have met amazing people and have the best coworkers possible. I work in a prime location, love what I do, and my job DOES provide a loving service to people all over the world. The failure lead me to figure out how to be a success in my job, and I am grateful for that. I need to learn to apply this aspect in the rest of my life, but this is a big one for me and I know that the Lord’s hands were involved in shaping my life. 

"You defeated me in a way no one ever thought was possible. You became my friend, by never giving up on me." I think that this statement is powerful. I am not going to say which character said it and to who this character was speaking to because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but I think that this is a powerful statement. I don’t know how I have been blessed with the people I have been blessed with, with the friends that I have been blessed with. I don’t know how people put up with my crazy, but they have and I love them for it. I have gone through many changes in my life and I am not the same person I was even 5 months ago, let alone in High School. There have been people who have known me for a very long time who have seen the changes I have gone through, who have never given up on me, in a way defeating me, or defeating the person I thought I was. There are people who have helped me get through some serious emotions, helped me to get on a path to be a better person, who have helped me accept myself for who I am. I have been able, with the help of many important people in my life, overcome and defeat the person I thought I needed to be and have helped me to just be me. Alex, Ruthann, Erik, Luke, Kenneth, Clayson, Nic, Macey, and countless others, I love you and thank you for helping to “defeat” me and never give up on me.

All of those quotes from the episode are super powerful and just give a glimpse into why I love this show so much, but none of them compare to the powerful emotions that I felt while I watched this next part of the episode. This scene spoke to me and touched my heart and filled me with so many emotions, so while it is potentially spoilery, I have done my best to edit it down so that you can read it without being spoiled. There are three different people speaking, but I am just going to post the dialogue. 

“You didn’t know me in the Enchanted Forest Emma but, I was someone who took risks even when she was afraid. I was someone who, I guess, inspired people. An old enemy reminded me of that. I just don’t want to ever run the risk of forgetting who I was again.”
“What are you saying Mary Margaret?”

“I’m saying I don’t want to be Mary Margaret anymore. I wan to be Snow White again.” 

As I was watching this part a wave of emotion crashed over me. There are a lot of truths that are spoken in this brief conversation. I honestly don’t know why this hit me so hard as it did, but I am going to try and place some words to what I was feeling and thinking as I watched this scene and relate it to the gospel in a possibly round about way, but I am going to do my best. All of the characters on this show have had to figure out who they are. They have had to overcome a curse, separation, dealing with the knowledge of their two lives, had their memories taken multiple times, and have become better people for it, but it has had its challenges. When the curse broke there was an episode where they spent a good portion of the episode calling each other by their Fairy Tale names and their Curse names. No one quite knew what to call themselves or how to refer to one another. They had forgotten who they were and were defining themselves based on the 28 years they had been cursed. This past Sunday’s episode was the first time one of the characters acknowledged that they didn’t like the person they were under the curse. Mary Margaret was not Snow. They were two very different people, and she was finally able to remember who she used to be and didn’t want to forget. She didn’t want to be defined by Mary Margaret, she wanted to be who she truly is, and that is Snow White. In a sense we all are living like that. We all are living in a world that is different than the one we came from. Before we were born we lived with our Heavenly Parents as their literal spirit children. We were born with divine destinies, opportunities to learn and grow, and to discover who we are. We brought with us characteristics and personalities that we could use to benefit ourselves and others. We were sent here to learn and grow, to discover things about ourselves, to find people we knew before, and to become the men and women our Heavenly Parents want us to be able to become, and who we jumped for joy at the opportunity to try to be. Sometimes I feel like the curse is lifted and I get a glimpse of that man that I need to be. I get glimpses of the divinity that I have in me, and I get glimpses of the person I was before I came here. I get glimpses of the aspects that came with me. I have no doubt in my mind that there are people in this world that have come into my life who I knew before I was born. How else would you explain how easy it has been with them, how things just seemed to click instantly and that spark of, “I know you from somewhere” was lit. How else would you explain how quickly I become comfortable being myself around them, and how easy it has been to trust them? I have had glimpses of the person that I was. I think that there are divine aspects of the extra amount of love I have for the men in my life. My “gayness” didn’t just happen, but it came with me for a purpose. I have learned a lot about myself since coming out to myself and others, to opening up and allowing people to get to know the real me, and it is wonderful. I am a very empathetic and emotional person and while I always curse my grandma for the genetics of crying all the time, I can’t help but think that it is a blessing that I am able to actually feel things deeply and intensely, as much as I hate crying. I love people deeply and care more about other people than I do about myself, and I feel like that is an attribute that came with me. I am slightly obsessive and passionate about things (sometimes ridiculous things, I will admit it) but it has helped me to experience a lot of things and learn to love a lot of people. I think that there are many other things that just come naturally to me and seem to be a part of me that I can’t help but believe are aspects of my eternal spirit and will be a part of me forever. So, like Mary Margaret wanting to be Snow, I don’t just want to be mortal Kevin, I want to start to work better at remembering who I truly am, a Son of God with divine potential to become like my Heavenly Parents. My “cursed” self (just my mortal experience) isn’t my only existence and I want to become who I have the potential to become.

Wow, this post ended up being longer than I expected, but this week’s episode touched me and spoke to me. I learned a lot of lessons. Fear needs to be replaced with faith, failure can lead to success, and I am recognizing more and more that there are aspects of my life that I brought with me (my gayness, my emotions, my testimony, etc) from before this life that have become blessings in my life and will help me to become the man that my Heavenly Parents want me to become.