Decide To Decide
"Now may I make a recommendation? Develop discipline of self so that, more and more, you do not have to decide and redecide what you will do when you are confronted with the same temptation time and time again. You need only to decide some things once. How great a blessing it is to be free of agonizing over and over again regarding a temptation. To do such is time-consuming and very risky.
"Likewise, my dear young friends, the positive things you will want to accomplish need be decided upon only once--like going on a mission and living worthily in order to get married in the temple--and then all other decisions related to these goals can fall into line. Otherwise, each consideration is risky, and each equivocation may result in error. There are some things Latter-day Saints do and other things we just don't do. The sooner you take a stand, the taller you will be!"
(President Kimball Speaks Out, Deseret Book Co., 1981, p. 94)
"A dozen times a day we come to a fork in the road and must decide which way we will go... It is important to get our ultimate objectives clearly in mind so that we do not become distracted at each fork in the road by the irrelevant questions: Which is the easier or more pleasant way? Or, Which way are others going?" ...
"When I was young, I made up my mind unalterably that I would never taste tea, coffee, tobacco, or liquor. I found that this rigid determination saved me many times throughout my varied experiences. There were many occasions when I could have sipped or touched or sampled, but the unalterable determination firmly established gave me good reason and good strength to resist.
"The time to decide on a mission is long before it becomes a matter of choosing between a mission and an athletic scholarship. The time to decide on temple marriage is before one has become attached to a boyfriend or girlfriend who does not share that objective. The time to decide on a policy of strict honesty is before the store clerk gives you too much change. The time to decide against using drugs is before a friend you like teases you for being afraid or pious.
The time to decide that we will settle for nothing less than an opportunity to live eternally with our Father is now, so that every choice we make wil be affected by our determination to let nothing interfere with attaining that ultimate goal."
President Spencer W. Kimball on our deciding to decide:
Printable PDF Version of This Parable