The Insanity Quote

There’s a phrase that goes something like this: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.”  Another variation on the same idea is the quote attributed to Einstein (though he likely didn’t say it): “The definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.”  I can certainly understand cases where this idea is exactly right.  For example, if I were to bake a cake exactly the same way with the same ingredients every time but expect it to taste differently than before, that would be pretty foolish.  Or if I drove to work the same way as always and expected the route to suddenly be faster that would be a bit absurd.  In these examples and many others like it, the quote applies because the outcome is fully dependent on the actions I’m continually repeating (or nearly so).  But I think we have to be careful trying to apply this same principle to other areas of our lives in which what we do is not the only main contributor to the result. 

                One place in scripture that I think we see this principle is in the Savior’s parable of the unjust judge.  A widow came to the judge who “feared not God” and she asked of him, “Avenge me of mine adversary.”  She continued pestering him until finally the judge said, “Though I fear not God, nor regard man; Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me” (Luke 18:4-5).  The woman did the same thing day in and day out, doing everything she could to get the judge to avenge her.  But even though at first what she was doing did not get the result she wanted, it wasn’t the case that she should have quit because it wasn’t working.  And she didn’t need to do anything different—she just needed to be persistent.  The point of the story was to teach about prayer, telling us “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint” (Luke 18:1).  It would be dangerous for us try to apply the above mentioned phrase that tells us not to do the same thing over and over again if it isn’t getting us the results we want; sometimes that’s exactly what prayer demands of us.  We need to “continue in prayer” as the scriptures tell us in multiple places (see Alma 34:19, D&C 88:76, Colossians 4:2).  What if Enos had quit after the first hour, or the second, or the third just because he didn’t get the answer he was wanted?  How many times did Alma the Elder plead essentially the same prayer before the angel came down to visit his son?  The gospel requires that we “endure unto the end” and sometimes that means continuing to do the things of daily worship that sometimes may not seem they are producing the desired spiritual results.  Just because prayer or scripture study or regular temple attendance doesn’t reap the spiritual blessings right away doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t “continue as [we] commenced” (D&C 9:5).  We can eventually expect different results precisely when we persevere in doing the same things over and over.  The difference seems to be that when the outcome is not mainly in our control, it very well may be that what we need to do is to continue doing exactly what we have been doing and not lose hope that persistence in spiritual matters will pay off.