When I left the Mormon Church I was angry for a long time. Angry at the leaders for what I saw as them telling malicious lies to me my entire life. Not only to me but every single person I knew in the small, tight knit community I grew up in. Every General Conference I anxiously listened as Elder Dallin H. Oaks restated the principles of the Family Proclamation, and then shortly after my fears would be vindicated as I learned of the suicides of my LGBT brothers and sisters within the Mormon church. As I type this, I'm still worried for the gay Mormons and their pain that will be felt by them this weekend. I was angry for the tithes I freely gave the church, angry for the wasted time I spent in devotion to the church, angry at the leaders for allowing sexual abuse behind their closed doors in bishop interviews. My list could go on, but likely my few readers will have felt my same feelings.

Agency implies everyone starts out as a clean slate with no outside influence, but nobody is free from external pressure we have reacted to since birth. We are all influenced by our genetics and environment- things beyond our control. I believe everyone's life story, down to the details, has been waiting to happen since the beginning of time. Our lives are the products of every reaction that has occurred since the beginning of the universe. It's a bold statement, but I can't see any other logical explanation. I don't see our self awareness as anything more than us being able to observe our senses.

When I was Mormon and believed everyone was this clean slate, this being easily able to rise above the molders of their environment, I judged people so harshly because I felt they had chosen to be who they were. Nobody chooses who they are. I never chose to be gay, to be raised Mormon, to like yellow, to think the western states are better than the eastern American states, to struggle with depression and anxiety, to be quite tall, or anything else that identifies me as me. People like Boyd K. Packer, Dallin H. Oaks, my Bishop, my Dad, my sweet neighbors, my wonderful siblings, they never chose to be who they are. They were all created by the reactions in the world that ended up producing them. I started to see that if I could love myself and my flaws because I did not choose them, I could love other flawed people. I didn't have to agree with their actions to love them for just being a human. A human that also just found themself in this life, like I did.