Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that
stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the
loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will
grow all delightful conditions, all, heavenly environment; of these,
if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.

To desire is to obtain; to aspire is to, achieve. Shall man's basest
desires receive the fullest measure of gratification, and his purest
aspirations starve for lack of sustenance? Such is not the Law: such
a condition of things can never obtain: "ask and receive."

How can we break bad habits and form healthy new ones? The Savior gives us insight into the process in the following magnificent parable.

"For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?

"Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

"Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish."

(Luke 14: 28-30)

Most of us are great starters and poor finishers. We begin to "mock" at ourselves, to lose faith in our ability to keep the promises we make with ourselves.

We simply to do not sit down first and count the cost to see if we have sufficent to finish - sufficent desire, sufficient internal thrust. We try to lift off our launching pad without realistically calculating the "g's" (gravity pull) and the resistance of the atmosphere (our environment).

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.

We are often happiest when we are WORKING, despite the demands of contemporary work. It is when we most commonly experience "flow," that sense of doing what we do well, when we can lose ourselves in the moment. Many of us work at home at least part of the time now, and we can make the experience more rewarding. We can enjoy it, whether we are working for ourselves or others, because there are ways to optimize flow. And that means creating an environment that functions well and feels good. Drop the office aesthetic; it subliminally reinforces the message that work is a duty. And, given that so much of what we do is technological in texture, it is important to bring some warmth, some life, some sensuous pleasure. Have your office in the toolshed or in bed sometimes. Make it pleasurable. Establish personal rituals. Allegedly Edith Sitwell sat in a coffin before she started work, whereas Katherine Mansfield gardened, and Colette picked the fleas off her cat. Anything to stave off the moment. In practice, work boils down to right-brain creative work and left-brain logical work. You can't speed up right-brain work. It is highly intuitive and hard to schedule. We do it best when we let ideas happen in their own time. Left-brain work depends on efficiency, processes, and very good tools. It is fast, rational, analytical, linear. Each type needs its own environment.

It is a great challenge to raise a family in the darkening mists of our moral environment.

We emphasize that the greatest work you will do will be within the walls of your home (see Harold B. Lee, Ensign, July 1973, p. 98), and that “no other success can compensate for failure in the home” (David O. McKay, Improvement Era, June 1964, p. 445).

The measure of our success as parents, however, will not rest solely on how our children turn out. That judgment would be just only if we could raise our families in a perfectly moral environment, and that now is not possible.

It is not uncommon for responsible parents to lose one of their children, for a time, to influences over which they have no control. They agonize over rebellious sons or daughters. They are puzzled over why they are so helpless when they have tried so hard to do what they should.

It is my conviction that those wicked influences one day will be overruled.

“The Prophet Joseph Smith declared—and he never taught a more comforting doctrine—that the eternal sealings of faithful parents and the divine promises made to them for valiant service in the Cause of Truth, would save not only themselves, but likewise their posterity. Though some of the sheep may wander, the eye of the Shepherd is upon them, and sooner or later they will feel the tentacles of Divine Providence reaching out after them and drawing them back to the fold. Either in this life or the life to come, they will return. They will have to pay their debt to justice; they will suffer for their sins; and may tread a thorny path; but if it leads them at last, like the penitent Prodigal, to a loving and forgiving father’s heart and home, the painful experience will not have been in vain. Pray for your careless and disobedient children; hold on to them with your faith. Hope on, trust on, till you see the salvation of God.” (Orson F. Whitney, in Conference Report, Apr. 1929, p. 110.)

We cannot overemphasize the value of temple marriage, the binding ties of the sealing ordinance, and the standards of worthiness required of them. When parents keep the covenants they have made at the altar of the temple, their children will be forever bound to them.

The real key for parents, then, lies in teaching children to recognize the Spirit of Christ and in strengthening them so they can have the courage it takes to respond to it. And the most powerful way to teach children is by example and by creating the kind of home environment that enhances spiritual sensitivity for the entire family.

For instance, it seems illogical to expect a youngster to feel uncomfortable about watching R-rated films on the sly if Mom and Dad bring R-rated videocassettes home for their private viewing. Justifications like “Well, it won an Oscar” or “There’s only one little scene (or word, or grotesque special effect) that gave it an R-rating” are just that: justifications, hollow excuses for going contrary to the Spirit of Christ. Never mind that Mom and Dad won’t allow the kids to watch the show with them. The only thing that particular limitation teaches is that it’s okay to assault your values with video violence, profanity, and sexuality, as long as you’re an adult.

No scriptural or doctrinal support exists for such double standards. There are only admonitions to “let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly” (D&C 121:45) and reminders such as the thirteenth article of faith that Latter-day Saints should seek after things “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.”