Endure or Enjoy??

stuckinarut2

Have we ever noticed how witnesses are constantly being told that life is something that needs to be "ENDURED", rather that "ENJOYED"?

Life is always so tough, so hard, so difficult in "these last days". "Persecution and Trials abound". "Worldly people and opposers" are always trying to make things hard for "Jehovah's people" etc...

Life is not promoted as something to be ENJOYED now, but rather just to be put up with, until "the real life" occurs in the "paradise".

It must mess with the minds of witnesses??

Any thoughts?

I always thought about that. Endurance means having to carry a load with no hope of immediate relief but a promise that relief will ultimately come. The long drawn out study articles are directed to those in pain, like Job. But also, in a general sense, it applies to everyone wanting to earn some reward; enduring 8 years of post graduate work to earn a medical degree and to complete the required medical training, for example. It pays off if you keep your eyes on the price.

schnell

Are you accusing witnesses of negative thinking?

As Fisherman alluded, it ties right in with the supposedly finite end times. Keep your eyes on the prize. Endure. If it were accepted that life goes on and there were no future phase of history to look forward to, it'd be less about endurance and more about living life.

Finkelstein

Yes it was always supposed to be hard and tough battling Satan and his wicked evil forces particularity during the end times.

Pulling away and rejecting this old system of things was suppose to be enduring and difficult to Jesus's true dedicated followers but a grand award was the appealing result, showing loyalty to the directives set out by the WTS leaders.

The same imposition of guilt, fear, loyalty and shame is still orchestrated by this organization.

Iown Mylife

A medical degree is a reward and a prize for a lot of hard work.

If JWs keep their eyes on the price they'll figure out that it's too high.

dubstepped

It messes with their minds in that A.) they miss out on all of the beauty in the world while having their pity party and B.) they absolve themselves of personal responsibility and live in perpetual denial of their own issues and that they can affect them if they want. It's a vicious cycle of not investing in this life therefore life sucks which only proves that this old system is dying and their deliverance is near, all the while it is largely self-induced.

scratchme1010

Have we ever noticed how witnesses are constantly being told that life is something that needs to be "ENDURED", rather that "ENJOYED"?
Life is always so tough, so hard, so difficult in "these last days". "Persecution and Trials abound". "Worldly people and opposers" are always trying to make things hard for "Jehovah's people" etc...
Life is not promoted as something to be ENJOYED now, but rather just to be put up with, until "the real life" occurs in the "paradise".
It must mess with the minds of witnesses??
Any thoughts?

It is more noticeable with high demand, controlling groups like the WT, but Christianity in general promotes that sense of wrongness with life around you. As some other people mentioned in another post, according to Christianity (and the WT is not an exception to that) we are born in sin and therefore, our own mere existence makes us deserving of dying. Also, when you add their black and white mentality, that is, you are either for them or against them, if you enjoy something, they cannot see it as something that you are enjoying, but rather as being "weak", "wordly", "loving the world", etc.

Life itself and the world is not in black and white. People are not good/bad, life is not great/horrible. Life is made of a number of places, events and people who cross your path in a good/bad way, but it never stops. While there's a wonderful perfect day in Florida, we're buried in snow in New York. It never is all good and all bad.

Therefore, it's a mistake to look and take life as something that one has to recover from. If you concentrate in the bad that life brings, you will find it, same thing if you concentrate in the good.

Darkknight757

The JW's hate this world so much that they miss the entire point of life: to enjoy it. That is how they can rationalize it in their minds that they aren't missing out on anything in "Satans world." The GB has done a splendid job reprogramming these people. Classic cult workmanship there.

My MIL and my own mother hate life so much right now cause they really think there is something better to come. Of course they have to die in order to see it.

My wife recently told her mom that she is not only pregnant, but pregnant with twins and her look was of sheer horror. "How can you possibly raise two children in this world when the new one is so close?" she perhaps thought. Who knows what was running through her mind? It seems as if lately my MIL has gotten to be even more negative.

Something is happening in the Org that are making these poor saps hate life. Sadly they are missing out. Regular normal people are much happier and better company than any "Best life ever!!" Jw.

WTWizard

It is simply the way joke-hova keeps people wasting their whole lives waiting on a scam. It is not coming, simple as that. And even when joke-hova does act, it is going to be to enslave the whole human race. So, people are programmed to simply waste their time and energy waiting for it, and putting energy into it that should have been used to do something constructive.

Sorry

The definition of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The WT always tells JWs that life is horrible, everything is wrong, and this world is not something to enjoy. Yet, they're the ones that constantly beat them down by discouraging college education, encouraging working as little as possible to spend all of you time in field circus, racking on constant guilt by making them not feel good enough, forcing them to separate from "worldly people", constant focus on negative things that happen in the world and never gives praise to JWs hard work, and constantly working about what the other witness thinks. It puts such a mental strain on a person. The reason the average JW has such a hard time in life is because the WT makes it so. The rules they makes up serves the purpose to prove them right. Life as a witness is something to endure. The gag is... no payoff. Just a permanent dirt nap and a sales pitch funeral.

Endure or Enjoy??

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