Appreciate Your Opportunities ~ Part One

Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening,

this post should take three to five minutes to read from start to finish.

Why should you appreciate your opportunities? Have you ever appreciated your opportunities in the past? If not, have you just had a moment to think about starting to appreciate your opportunities from now on?

This post focuses on October 1975 BYU Devotional, and it is called "Appreciate Your Opportunities" by Brother Marion D. Hanks. This post is part one, I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the Devotional and I hope that you would be able to learn something new whilst reading this post. Elder Hanks has mentioned the following; "... Someone has written, “New leaves do not come because old leaves are falling. Old leaves fall because new leaves are coming.” You are the new leaves. ...

Information and Appreciation

... Abraham Heschel wrote: Two things a man needs information and appreciation. Now when I look at our educational system and many other institutions for civilization, I see a tremendous emphasis upon information, 

but hardly any cultivation of the sense of appreciation. Unless there is appreciation there is no mankind. The 

great marvel of being alive is the ability to discover the mystery and wonder of everything. The real dignity of anything that is, is in its relationship to God Who created it. Unless we learn how to revere, we will not know

how to exist as human beings.

"Opportunity ahead."

For what information and appreciation shall we seek? ... A leaf, a rock, a star, swimming, biology, geology, astronomy all are wonderful. It would be wonderful if each of us had a broad enough base in the laws of nature and the basics of science and the facts of history and the principles of philosophy to be interested in and understand in a measure the great advances being made around us. 

This knowledge contributes richness to life and perhaps to making a living, but more important than any of it, central to all of it, giving it all meaning and coherence, is information about and appreciation of man himself, of 

his relationships with others and with God, and of his understanding of origins and heritage and possibilities, responsibilities, and an everlasting future. ...

Appreciation for Life

Appreciate life. ... These two or three sentences constituted the valedictory, of sorts, of Tom Dooley. Said the questioner, “Dr. Dooley, you are living on borrowed time, yet your contributions to humanity seem to take no account of the trials you personally are called upon to bear.” “Yes,” he said (this conversation was replayed the day he died), “I am living on borrowed time. 

So are you; so is every man who walks this earth. I may live to be as old as you are now; I may not live to see my next birthday. This does not matter. What really counts is what I do in terms of human good with the days, the weeks, the months or the years allotted to me by my creator.” Appreciate life.

Appreciation for Others

Appreciate others and be respectful of their values. I was called upon to pray at a public gathering a few days ago and found myself without premeditation thanking God for the qualities of gentility and civility and caring which permit people of diverse points of view and diverse ways of living to be together in an atmosphere of courtesy and graciousness. ... Do you remember the words of the great apostle who encouraged all of us to “honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king” (1 Peter 2:17)? We also read of the Prophet, under the inspiration of God, preceding the marvelous words “let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly” with the admonition that we be filled with love toward all men, and to the household of faith (see D&C 121:45). ..."

Stay Tuned until next time.