Your riches taught me poverty. Myself a millionaire in little wealth until I entered your estate with you. When figures show their royal front and mists are carved away—behold the atom I prefer. Freedom is logically connected with will, and will is as essential to mind as intellect is. Instead of succumbing to a seemingly stagnant life, one can plan to keep improving. Freedom is something that has to be achieved. Adulthood—by nature it seems an exciting, ever-flowing river of successes and disappointments, occasionally interspersed by a few marked moments: graduating from college, passing entrance exams, getting married, having children, landing that dream job—all significant milestones along the journey of life. So what happens when it seems like we have reached most of our important milestones, or when we feel like we are just not making progress in life? It is easy to feel as though our once progressive life is now completely stagnant, resulting in one of several things: an apathy toward life and progression of any kind, despair from feeling a lack of meaning or fulfillment, or angst from feeling one is not going anywhere. When we have nothing to measure our lives against, it can quickly slip into anything from monotonous banality to debilitating helplessness. If one finds oneself among those who feel trapped in this stagnating stage of life, remember that one does not have to be doing something extraordinary to have an extraordinary life, but one has to be doing something. #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

They key to stay happy with life is to keep moving. The path to eternal life is not on a plateau. Rather, it is an incline, ever onward and upward. In order to move forward in life—past the stagnant parts of the river—we need to take a step toward improving ourselves. Complacency is surprisingly powerful, though, especially when the process of daily life can seem all consuming. In our quest to become the best people we can be, we will often hit plateaus where we feel like we are not making any progress at all. Those flat-line moments in life can be a real soul sucker. We can see where we want to be, but we are stuck at a level just below our desired goal, and it seems like no matter what we do that we cannot imagine how we will be able to reach our goals. Although we cannot always create the major milestones in our lives, we can find meaning and fulfillment by setting and striving to keep purposeful daily, weekly, and yearly goals. First, it is important to take a step back and look at our life as it already is. This involves a thorough self-evaluation. We have to ask ourselves question like: Where do I need development? What do I want out of life? How can I get there? Then it is important to honestly evaluate where and how we spend our time and what things we want to change. Think about the things we want to do, traits we want to develop, and skills we want to acquire. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

Life’s many goals of improvement including increased wisdom, mental improvement, physical development, spiritual fortification, and social growth are essential. What can the concept of God mean under these circumstances? It is transformed from its original religious meaning into one fitting the alienated culture of success. In the religious revival of recent times, the belief in God has been transformed into a psychological device to make one better fitted for the competitive struggle. Religion allies itself with auto-suggestion and psychotherapty to help people in their business activities. People also call upon God for purposes of improving one’s personality. Belief in God and prayer is recommended as a means to increase one’s ability to be successful. Just as modern psychiatrist recommend happiness of the employee, in order to be more appealing to the customers, some ministers recommend love of God to be more successful. To make God our partner means to recognize God in business, love, justice and truth. Just as brotherly live has been replaced by impersonal fairness, God has been transformed into a remote General Director of our Universal Corporation. We know that God is there, he runs the show, we never see him, but we acknowledge God’s leadership while we are doing our part. Therefore, when we decide on categories and goals, we must remember to include the Heavenly Fathers in the process. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

It is important to make prayer a serious matter so we can find out how to best improve our lives and what God’s will is for us. It is not enough to do things. We must do the right things—the things our Heavenly Father would want us to do. Heavenly Father wants us to be continually progressing because he knows our eternal potential. When we stretch past our comfort zone, that is when growth comes. If we choose to learn from our failures, they can bring us closer to our goal. It is also important for us to be honest with ourselves, and not just confide in people who tell us what we want to near, instead of what we need to hear. Learning to accept criticism is something that simply takes discipline and practice. We truly have to consider if there is something valuable to learn in criticism and make sure it is constructive, and not just meant as a put down. Our choices and decisions can render life both perplexing and frustrating. I know that a lot of people recommend taking risks and not being afraid to fail, but that is not always a good idea. Because sometimes we may not recover from losses. Like the recession of 2008 cost Americans $70,000.00 of financial prosperity over a lifetime. Therefore, just because life seems to be boring at the moment, it would not be a good idea to quit your job, sale your house, and sink all that money into a business. We have to actually fear failure and do our research to make sure we are making rational decisions. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

Our decisions and choices are inextricably tied to the roles and relationships that envelop our lives. If we choose to leave a certain occupation, we touch not only our own life but the lives of family, friends, and associates whom we leave, as well as the people we shall soon be working for. Our decision, in other words, is not unaffected by other relationships which influence our life. When choosing a line of work, a business move, an occupational choice, we must consider not only our own needs, but the needs and life situations of others, too. A discerner weighs the power of consolation and desolation as well as the movements away and to God, in order to choose well. This is done in the context of prayer wit the foal of doing the will of God. Perhaps the most important goal we have right now is to be worthy of the temple. The temples are not God, but they are there to remind us of God. The soul is real in which countless acts of self-preservation are provoked through its contacts with other reals, and these efforts in turn produce in mind the presentations, some of which oppose, some of which reinforce each other. Once we have established the end goal, we have to think about smaller goals that will help us achieve our long-term goals. #RandophHarris 5 of 10

It is important to pray for divine guidance. The feelings, the desires, and the will have their origin in presentations. Some feelings arise out of the fusion of opposed presentation, and the pleasantness or unpleasantness depend on the amount of opposition. Other feelings originate in the strain which the rising, produced by a new presentation, puts on ties which an old presentation already has with one or more. Thus the sight of an object belonging to a friend who has returned to God evokes the memory of him, but the thought of his passing into Heaven tend to repress the memory and thus may produce a painful feeling. Pleasant feelings arise in the contrary situation, when the other associated presentations all facilitate the recall of the original one. The desires are closely connected wit feelings. In a situation giving painful feelings, where A is lifted toward consciousness by the appearance of C and is simultaneously depressed by its earlier relation to B, the feeling of effort by which the resistance is overcome will be a desire and A will appear as the object of desire. The will, in turn, is only a particular form of desire, the realization of which is seen as possible. Therefore, we must make sure that each of our goals will actually help us reach our desired outcome and that we are committed to keeping them. We have to decide about things that we will incorporate into our life, things that will bring us eternal happiness. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

Transgressions leads to a system of requital. Seeing someone who reminds one exactly of a friend who has passed away, a young friend we went to college with, well could serve as a good omen. It could be as reminder from God to stay strong and not go down the same path. Not that the friend was messing up in life, but there may have been an element that lead to their downfall, such as a loved one who was involved in unknown situation, who he cared about, and allow to pull him down right after graduating from college. The mind needs serious goals and plans to begin rowing past the stagnant stage of our lives. Using our agency to develop oneself personally is a way to discover our gifts and talents, we must let the Spirit guide us. We have to choose to act for ourselves Be motivated from within and make a plan for our lives. The benevolent spectator (omen) would wish for the greatest possible sum of well-being attained through the rational distribution of the available goods. Then increased well-being would produce an intensity and range of strivings reconciled under a system of culture. With the obedience of each to the moral insight of all, the many would become one in an ideal society. Perfection relates the varied acts of a single will. To this multiplicity, three quantitative concepts may be applied: the strength of any single effort (intensity), the multiplicity of the objects encompassed by the will (extension), and the concentration of this manifold into a total power (a new intensity developing out of extension). #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

There is no absolute standard, but the stronger and more concentrated will is more pleasing than the weaker. Therefore, one has to decide to set goals which are consistent with our divine destiny. We have to believe in ourselves, and know that we can reach goals—our goals. Set goals, overcome mistakes, gain experience, and we have to finish what we begin. There is one supreme God, he ought to be worshipped. Virtue and piety are the chief part of divine worship. We should be sorry for our sins and repent them. Recall that divine goodness dispenses reward and punishments both in this life and after. By the discovery of these principles, we can be far more happy than Archimedes. Revelation is given as a message to all humankind, or reserved for the individual mind. If life’s progress is stalled, pray for a sign from Heaven. God is the figure of a father and a symbol of justice, truth, and love. God is truth, God is justice. In this development God cease to be a person, a man, a father; he becomes the symbol of the principle of unity behind the manifoldness of phenomena, the vision of the flower which will grow from the spiritual seed within human beings. “One did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in one’s faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God has power to do what he had promises,” Romans 4.20-22. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

We need not fear the future, because we know that as we keep the commandments, the Lord will bless us. Reasoning, perceiving, wanting, feeling, and the rest are one and all activities or attributes of the human being and considered a total, unitary personality. Much of what we need to put into our goals is what we need to extend to the World: our love, our compassion, our integrity, our courage, our yearning for a deeper life. And what a lucid joy it is to enter so fully in consciously into life. What a gift it is to be so closely, so deeply attached and bonded to our goals that we cannot get away for very long. May we stay out of roundabouts and move forward with faith in God. “And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me,” reports Moroni 7.33. The future is extremely bright. In all of our learning, understanding that the most brilliant minds of our day are only discovering and inventing that God already knows, the more we want to learn. Imagine our ability—as we live righteously, receive sacred ordinances, and follow God’s commandments—to inherit all things. We have to understand that with God all things are possible. “But as it I written, eye have not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of humans, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God,”1 Corinthians 9-10. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

We spend a lifetime learning how to overcome our physical desires and understanding how our spirits can become the master of souls. Because our Heavenly Father knew this process would be difficult, we have the sweetest whisperings of the Spirit to help us learn how to be a good person, husband, wife, a good parent, and an outstanding member in the community. We have to exercise both faith and courage to leave the plateau of indecision and express thanks to our Heavenly Father for his countless blessings. To love God is to long for the attainment of the full capacity of love. Our spiritual powers and the striving for salvation are part of our inner birth. The realm of love, reason and justice exists as a reality only because, inasmuch as, humans have been able to develop these powers in themselves throughout the process of our evolution. May we also demonstrate kindness and love within our own families. Our homes are to be more than sanctuaries; they should also be places where God’s Spirit can dwell, where the storm stops at the door, where love reigns and peace dwells. Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. Our gratitude to God is often beyond expression. We believe in a God who is engaged in our lives, who is not silent, not absent. We have experienced his higher powers in our longing for truth and unity. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10