How Not To Be

One of my favorite funny quotes is: 'If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning.' (Catharine Aird) No one is perfect, but we can at least hope to be more of an example and less of a warning!
I was thinking about my little grandson Bryce today. Dad and I love him and Alyssa so much, and want to be really good grandparents. I was blessed with wonderful grandparents, and they made a big difference in my life. I knew I wanted to be a grammy like mine were before I ever got any grandchildren. Not only did my grandparents bless my life, but I hope their example will bless the lives of my grandchildren.
Examples...and warnings...have been big influences in my life. Generally I am more affected by the warnings than by the examples around me, I'm afraid. I wish it were the other way around. I'm afraid it both reveals and fosters a more negative view of life. But the warnings have been instructive, if not always entirely effective: Things not to say to, or about my husband, and ways not to treat my children; I've noticed sure-fire ways to alienate in-laws; ways to be needy, boring, or egotistical; good strategies on how to beat others in social competition; how to be a mean girl behind a nice girl facade; and the list could go on for a while. I have lived long enough to note that people who behave unpleasantly towards others end up being avoided by them, and we know that won't be the worst of it. The strongest warnings come from the people who don't try to better themselves as they go along, who ignore the messages along the way from the world and the people around them. (I just saw Don Giovanni.) And some of the best examples are people who have changed for the better: They are inspiring!
We are all mixtures of the sublime and the ridiculous, the charitable and the prideful, of altruism and selfishness. I don't think there is a laundry list of things to do to move myself out of the warning and into the example category. It is more about how, and how not, to be. There is an older couple in our ward who seem practically perfect to me. I don't think that because I know all the things that they do right, and that list is long, but because of the way they seem to do everything out of love of the Lord and charity for their fellowman. When I grow up, I want to be like them.