Friday, November 27, 2009

Straight Ahead

Thanksgiving was wonderful yesterday and I had a wonderful time! While traveling through a vale of people at Golden Corral in Layton looking for desserts with Mommy Dearest, she mentioned she has a long-time friend who is still bitter about something that happened decades ago. This man is so bitter that his wife left him and he continues to push his friends away.

This sad tale reminded me of a story I heard in seminary many years ago:

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who had a son. One day, while planting seeds, the son was being very careful about making sure he was going on a straight line. No matter how hard he tried, his rows never turned out straight. His father, with his many years of wisdom, showed the son what he was doing wrong: as he planted the seeds, he kept looking back at the seeds behind him, thus changing his course ever so slightly. The best way to stay on a straight course, the farmer taught, is to find a point of reference in the distance and use that as your guide.













The path to happiness is to find our point of reference in the distance and focus on that one point as our guide. Mommy's dearest's friend needs to find that point and focus on that so his life can be one straight path to happiness. The lesson for us all is to take what has happened to us before and use that to help us grow and be better.

This also reminds me of the talk Elder Perry gave at the last General Conference.

2 comments:

Fe said...

It seems that many times in life we do need to be focused more on our long-term goals and less on any current difficulties or stresses. By letting our behavior be guided long term goals instead of present setbacks and frustrations, we are much more likely to make correct decision as well as avoid getting sidetracked by things that may not be really that important in the long run.

Dawn said...

Thanks for your insight. Its true that we need to make sure we look ahead instead of behind us as well. We can't change the past, but our futures are bright if we allow them to be. :) I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful. You are missed around here. Come by and see me sometime :)