This postIn reading the latest issue of the BYU Alumni magazine, I came across this quote on page 25 by President Hinckley (yes, another one :)):
I am glad that you are young, and I hope you are enthusiastic, because there is a terrible ailment of pessimism in the land. It’s almost endemic. We’re constantly fed a steady and sour diet of character assassination, faultfinding, evil speaking of one another…. The tragedy is that this spirit of negativism seems to prevail throughout the country….
I come this evening with a plea that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. I’m suggesting that we accentuate the positive. I’m asking that we look a little deeper for the good, that we still our voices of insult and sarcasm, that we more generously compliment virtue and effort….
My dear young friends, don’t partake of the spirit of our times. Look for the good and build on it. There is so much of the sweet and the decent and the good to build upon.
You are partakers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel means “good news.” The message of the Lord is one of hope and salvation. The voice of the Lord is a voice of gladness. The work of the Lord is a work of glorious and certain reward. I do not suggest that you simply put on rose-colored glasses to make the world look rosy. I ask, rather, that you look above and beyond the negative, the critical, the cynical, the doubtful, to the positive. (”The Lord Is at the Helm,” March 6, 1994, pp. 3-4, 8)
When I read that, I instantly thought of the recent trend I’ve noticed creeping into my writing here: a crack of criticism, small to be sure, but unchecked it could tear my foundations apart. For example, my Sabbath sports post was a bit too negative. It left a slightly sour taste in my mouth, even though I thought I was standing for what I knew to be true. (And in a sense I was, yes, but I’ll get to that in a moment.) And it’s been bothering me since then.
President Hinckley’s words pierced me in a very good way, and as I walked to the grocery store I felt full of light and happiness. Why? Because I realized that looking for the good is the right way to do it. It’s obvious, I know. :) And yet it’s really easy to slip into a critical mode, pointing out all that’s going wrong. I’m still not entirely sure when the finger-pointing is necessary (I don’t think President Hinckley’s words mean we should ignore evils like child pornography and drugs, for example), but it’s undoubtedly a matter of balance, and that will come with time.
In the meantime, I’m going to work on looking for the good. I have a suspicion that it’s going to be a whole lot better than looking for the ills of the world. And beyond that, I don’t want to be remembered as a critic — I want to be remembered as someone who built other people up, who found the good in them and helped them see it, who touched the world for the better, who left a trail of light and happiness behind him everywhere he went. Time is precious. So is life. Does it really matter that I point out all the things I see going wrong in the world? Probably not nearly as much as I’ve thought it does.
It’s really quite simple: seeking out the bad makes me feel like junk, whereas seeking out the good makes me feel good and happy and wonderful. As we sow, thus we reap. 2 + 2 = 4.
