Book of the Week.

One of my new year's goals is to read more. I've been wasting too much precious time. So I'm on book 3 for the year. Last night I was reading in Stand For Something, by Gordon B. Hinckley and the whole chapter really hit me like a ton of bricks. I love when I'm reading something, and it completely validates my personal opinions.

Seriously though, I will tell you this: If you are one of those people who think that because you graduated from college, have a masters, doctorate, or because you are a woman who chooses to stay at home, or you are too old, or your continuing education means learning another language, or you just feel like you know enough, WHATEVER IT MAY BE. Think again, this is for you:

"Reduced to its simplest definition, education is the training of the mind and the body. Education is the great conversion process under which abstract knowledge becomes useful and productive activity. It is something that need never stop....I grew up believing that it was desirable to be informed, to be educated, to increase one's understanding about the world and its peoples....The learning process is endless. We must read, we must observe, we must assimilate, and we must ponder that to which we expose our minds. I believe in the evolution of the mind, heart, and the soul of humanity. I believe in improvement. I believe in growth...

For such reasons, and because the pace and complexity of life demand it, we cannot afford to stop learning and growing and progressing. We must not rest in our personal development--development that is emotional and spiritual as well as mental. There's so much to learn and so little time in which to learn it. I confess that I'm constantly appalled by the scarcity of my knowledge...Nonetheless, each of us, whether we are thirty or ninety, can keep growing. Each of us, regardless of our constraints or circumstances, can find a way to study and grow.

None of us can assume that we have learned enough. I have lived long enough now to say with certainty that as the door closes on one phase of life, it opens another. It therefore behooves us, and is our charge, to grow constantly toward eternity in what must be a ceaseless quest for truth. As as we search for truth, let us look for the good, the beautiful, and the positive."

Thank you Mr. Hinckley.