The Pinnacle of Perfection

President Spencer W. Kimball said that we should look for a spouse that reaches as near the pinnacle of perfection as we can find. But how do we know if we're being too picky.

Clearly only one person has ever achieved the status of perfection, but all the rest of us fall short, often very short. I wouldn't even begin to imagine what sins or mistakes Nephi must have made, and yet he exclaimed "Oh, Wretched man that I am!" He had his problems, The fact is we all do.

The question I have to wonder about is how do we define that person not at but near pinnacle of perfection?

It's funny how our paradigms get set. How they shift, and how they stay the same. Sometimes they are set as it were in stone, and sometimes even when we think we know what we want we end up going a different direction.

So how did we get these paradigms and ideas? Were they something someone gave to us? Did we find them lying in the street, or did we grow them like seeds, in the gardens of our minds hearts? Perhaps we create them. It could be we create them without even knowing?

Often times we like the things with which we are most familiar. This being the case, those people who we grow up around, and who impact our lives have a good chance of being a part of our paradigms. Sometimes though, these paradigms become a little too rigid. In the grand scheme of things I really believe that it doesn't really matter what we choose to do with our lives,
but more that we do something, and that we do it to the best of our abilities. I believe that the way we do things is as important if not more, than many of the things that we may choose to do. Don't get me wrong, I understand that people may get used to a standard of living, or other such things, and I think that's ok, but I guess I also believe that we live in a land and an age of opportunities. Many of our societal paradigms are tumbling all around us. Sometimes I think our paradigms could use a good tumble too.

There are some other ways that our definition or ideal could be created. Sometimes we hear something from a friend. Sometimes we hear things from what some might call a good friend (others might call it a TV). Sometimes we create paradigms just by talking about what we think we want.

Regardless of the paradigms we end up with, it seems very unlikely that someone else will share them exactly. It seems even less likely if we have too many of them, that someone will actually meet them all.

Now I don't think it's bad to know what you want, and I think it's great when a person understands themself well enough to know what works for them, but I also think it is possible for us to lose focus on the things that really matter most.

People used ask President Kimball what they should look for in a spouse and on occasion he would say something like this: 'Find someone like mine and you'll do alright.'
Sometimes when I look at his wife that seems a pretty tall order, but then when I look back through life I realize that there have been quite a few people that I have known that would probably meet that standard. Sure there may not always be a ton of them, but there always seem to be some. And I would imagine that there are probably more than we would think.
and sometimes they are closer than even we could imagine.

If we ask the right questions, we will probably get the right answers,
if we ask the wrong questions, we may still get answers, but a good old fashion paradigm could prevent us from understanding the answers that we get.

I guess sometimes we just need an open mind a willingness to try,
and of course faith, lots and lots of faith.