Ours is a faith of over-achievers. Relative to our tiny numbers, LDS church members are vastly over-represented in the fields of politics, business, academia, professional sports, pop-music, arts and literature. There are a number of theories for why this is: there’s simply the fact that, like many other minorities, we feel the need to overachieve simply to stay alive and prove ourselves; there’s also our doctrines of Eternal Progression and Degrees of Glory, which impels and encourages us to be constantly reaching for the next level above us; there’s the sheer fact that our Church is a rigid hierarchy, actively rewarding those who excel in their careers with upper-echelon callings within the faith (seriously, when is the last time we had a working-class General Authority?), incentivizing the larger membership to follow suit.

Yet it also did not inherently need to be this way. Our own Book of Mormon, for example, lionizes the sons of Mosiah, who consciously turned down the throne, to preach the Gospel abroad instead. Captain Moroni self-describes as one “who seeks not for power but to pull it down.” The ever-read/ever-quoted Alma 32 celebrates the humble and the meek as being the closest to God—and better yet those who are not compelled to be humble, but choose to be so voluntarily. The Doctrine and Covenants makes explicit that the overriding sin of the Nephites was pride, which same volume of scripture admonishes against exercising “control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness”, to instead let the Holy Spirit flow unto you naturally “without compulsory means.”

That is, there is just as easily an alternative-history wherein Mormonism is renowned for the Zen-like simplicity and meekness of its members, and their quiet rejection of the ambitions and vanities of the world.

These thoughts cross my mind every time the old ’90s one-hit-wonder “No Rain” by Blind Melon pops up on the radio. “All I can say is that my life is pretty plain/I like watching the puddles gather rain” goes the opening line–which for the so-called Slackerism of early-90s Gen X almost became a rallying call, even an Article of Faith. It was a call to leave behind the rat-race, to live in the moment, to no longer be so concerned with achievement or success or accomplishment, to embrace what Alma called “the easiness of the way,” and what Christ Himself spoke of when he said “My yoke is easy and my burden is light”—it’s a seductive idea.

And, I suspect, an accurate one. Christ recall remonstrated against the apostles when they asked who would be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven; and when he appeared to Moroni directly in Ether 12, he “talked with me face to face, and that he told me in plain humility, even as a man telleth another in mine own language, concerning these things.” Such seems to imply that the ethos of “No Rain” is much closer to the Kingdom of Heaven then all of our collective strivings and achievings; indeed, when one considers how much of the wickedness of this world is derived from strongmen constantly seeking to strive and achieve mastery over all others, “No Rain” starts to sound downright celestial.

We are all, like the little bee girl in the iconic music video, looking to escape this cynical and dark and dreary world, and reenter the Garden of Eden, where we shall dance and laugh with those like us who also cast off the cares of this world and “sought for the things of a better.” Per Revelations, we shall rest forever from our labors—as indeed we should have been doing all along.