Behavior

Along the lines of what Sister Rice was talking about in her lesson on Sunday (regarding the need to act as if we have faith even if we don't yet). I heard this interesting quote in a speech by AJ Jacobs recently. What made it the most interesting is that he is agnostic (unsure about the existence of a God). He tried living according to the laws of the Bible for one year as an experiment, and this was one of his conclusions:

“I couldn’t believe how much my behavior changed my thoughts. This is one of the huge lessons of the year- is that I almost pretended to be a better person, and I became a little bit of a better person. So, it’s that I had always thought, you know, that you change your mind, you change the behavior. But it’s often the other way around. You change your behavior and you change your mind. So, you know, if you want to become more compassionate you visit sick people in the hospital, and you become more compassionate. You donate to a cause, and you become more emotionally involved in that cause…. In the Proverbs it says that if you smile, you will become happier, which, as we know, is actually true….”