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By Sydney Walker, Church News
In today’s complex world, there is much confusion about how to implement principles of work and personal responsibility, Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles told BYU–Pathway students.
“I am particularly concerned about how many young adults fail to set righteous goals or have a plan to achieve them,” he said. “I am also concerned that many underestimate and devalue their own talents and capabilities.”
Resolving these two issues “will bring much joy into your life,” Elder Cook promised.
During a BYU–Pathway devotional broadcast on Tuesday, December 7, Elder Cook shared accounts and principles illustrating the importance of achieving righteous, worthwhile goals.
“My challenge to you is to examine your goals and determine which ones will allow you to fulfill family obligations and keep you on your covenant pathway and allow you to have the joy the Lord wants for you,” Elder Cook said.
Eliminate ‘Saturday morning cartoons’
When Elder Cook was growing up, his father met with him and his siblings individually to help them set goals in various areas of their lives. He taught them how Church, school and extracurricular activities would help them achieve these goals.
“He had three rules,” Elder Cook recalled. “One, we needed to have worthwhile goals. Two, we could change our goals at any time. And three, we had to diligently work toward whatever goal we chose.”
As parents, Elder Cook and his wife, Sister Mary Cook, decided to engage in a similar goal-setting practice with their children.
When Elder Cook asked their five-year-old son, Larry, what he wanted to do for an occupation when he grew up, Larry said he wanted to become a doctor like his Uncle Joe. So Elder Cook explained how all the worthwhile things he was doing would prepare him to be a doctor.
Several months later, Elder Cook again asked Larry what he wanted to do when he grew up. This time he wanted to be an airline pilot. Changing the goal wasn’t a problem, so Elder Cook proceeded to explain how his activities would help him achieve this new goal.
Almost as an afterthought, Elder Cook asked, “Larry, last time we talked, you wanted to become a doctor. What has changed your mind?”
Larry answered, “I think being a doctor would be good, but I have noticed that Uncle Joe works on Saturday mornings, and I wouldn’t want to miss Saturday morning cartoons on television.”
Since that time, Elder Cook’s family has labeled a distraction from a worthwhile goal as a “Saturday morning cartoon.”
“What I am suggesting is that you can meet many of your righteous, worthwhile goals with planning, grit and determination, especially if you eliminate the Saturday morning cartoons of life,” Elder Cook said. “You can also find more joy and happiness in your life.”
‘You Can Do Hard Things’
Elder Cook assured students working to accomplish their worthwhile goals: “You can do hard things.”
He told a story about a friend, Elder John B. Dickson, an emeritus General Authority Seventy, who was diagnosed with bone cancer in his right arm after receiving a mission call as a young man.
He was not expected to live more than a month. Ten months later, Elder Dickson left for his mission assignment to Mexico, having had his arm amputated.
Years later, speaking at the missionary training center, Elder Dickson invited four missionaries to compete with him in a tie-tying contest. He defeated all four missionaries using his teeth, shoulders and chest.
“Please know that you can overcome adversity and do hard things,” Elder Cook told students.
Elder Cook cited author and professor Angela Duckworth, who has found that success of all kinds is distinguished more by a good work ethic than by pure intelligence or ability. She noted that “enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.”
“Fortunate indeed are those who have a top-level goal so consequential to the world that it imbues everything they do, no matter how small or tedious, with significance,” Duckworth stated, illustrating this principle with the parable of the bricklayers.
In the parable, three bricklayers are asked, “What are you doing?” The first says, “I am laying bricks.” The second says, “I am building a church.” And the third says, “I am building the house of God.”
The parable concludes: “The first bricklayer has a job. The second has a career. The third has a calling.”
With this message in mind, Elder Cook encouraged students to examine their goals and determine which ones would keep them on the Lord’s covenant path. He reminded them of the Lord’s promise to preserve the righteous, who “need not fear” (1 Nephi 22:17).
“You will be blessed and protected when you seek righteous, worthwhile goals; plan and work with grit and determination; and rely and focus on faith, repentance, saving ordinances and the Savior’s atoning sacrifice as you endure to the end,” Elder Cook promised. “Focusing on the temple will help you achieve these goals.”
Paraphrasing Romans 12:12, he added, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. You can avoid the Saturday morning cartoons of life and achieve the joy the Savior has promised.”
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