Editor,
The Daily Lobo has printed a lot of letters from people supporting different viewpoints on what is right, what is wrong - and whether God has anything to do with it all.
It reminds me of a statement I read recently, written by Donald Miller in his book, Blue Like Jazz: "The argument stopped being about God a long time ago, and now it's about who is smarter, and, honestly, I don't care."
I don't presume to apply this to everyone who's written to the Daily Lobo, and I'm not suggesting that they're only concerned with proving how smart they are, but I include it because I know that it applies to myself, and I don't think I am exceptional.
My tendency is to prove first of all that I am right, that I know better than anyone else what is really going on, and that everyone else needs to agree with me.
This self-serving bias is exactly why I say that I am the problem. I am more concerned with myself than with anyone else. The main difference that makes me accepted as a "normal" person and makes, say, Hitler or Stalin monsters is the lack of opportunity I have to fully impose my selfishness on others like they had.
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This may seem overly exaggerated, but what I mean is this: There is something wrong with me and with everyone else as well. We are meant to treat each other well, to care about each other and hold others' needs as more important than our own, but instead we constantly serve ourselves first.
I have tried to fix this by positive thinking and self-discipline, but I have found my efforts to be futile. The only thing I have found effective to give me sincere love and care for others is to admit that I am powerless and to let God's love and power work through me. I consider myself a Christian because I believe Jesus Christ is the son of God and he lived the perfect life I can't live and willingly died to take my punishment, then rose from the dead.
I believe that through him I am forgiven and given access to life. Not only eternal life in Heaven, but true life here on Earth as he empowers me to live as we were meant to live.
When I remember what I've been saved from and the enormity of God's blessings to me, I am filled with a desire to share what I've found with others, and so even though I am still filled with plenty of the usual selfish motives for writing this, there is the hope that if it comes from God, there is some purity and truth in it as well.
Armand Nicolet
UNM student
