Editorial August 7, 1978 Issue

Models we can trust

Naomi Price

Dissatisfaction with life often arises from having cherished wrong ideals and untrustworthy models. When we measure our attainments against standards we have set for ourselves and we see a shortfall, we may be unhappy and feel we have failed. But have we really? Perhaps the criteria we accepted were not the right ones in the first place. Perhaps the models we held in thought were unrealistic, our goals impossible to attain. We should have been aiming for different targets all along.

Mrs. Eddy indicates that not only individuals but whole nations and generations of mortals are affected by their ideals and what they hold in thought as the ultimate good they hope to attain. In her sermon The People's Idea of God she writes, "Periods and peoples are characterized by their highest or their lowest ideals, by their God and their devil."^{Peo., pp. 6-7;} It is vitally important, then, for us to be correctly informed as to the nature of Truth and error, and to be well guided in setting up true standards and in selecting high ideals.

Childhood and adolescence in particular are periods of searching for ideals and targets. As though let loose in a theatrical clothing store, young people try for size and style all kinds of different mental outfits. They lightheartedly put on, as it were, the uniform of a three-star general instead of the garb and makeup of a clown, and momentarily think of themselves as winning national acclaim in combat.

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