Another word of counsel as you plan the course of your life. To do the special things given to this generation, you will need to guard against selfishness. One of the tendencies most individuals have which simply must be overcome is the tendency to be selfish. All that you can do now while you are young and are more pliant to become less selfish and more selfless will be an important and lasting contribution to the quality of your life in the years, and in the eternity, to come. You will be a much better wife or a much better husband, a better mother or a better father, if you can change the tendency to be selfish. Your children whom you will not know for a few years yet have an interest in your conquest of selfishness.

As in all things, we have the example of the Savior on the cross at Calvary. He did something that he was not forced to do—something which would benefit others with the gift of immortality which Jesus already had. His was the supreme act of selflessness.

You may recall reading in 3 Nephi about the visit of the resurrected Jesus to this continent and how after blessing the children he wept twice and he also said, “And now behold, my joy is full” (3 Ne. 17:20).

True joy can only come from giving ourselves to correct causes such as the building up of the kingdom, causes that are in a sense larger than we are. Pleasure tends to be self-centered. True joy always includes others.

Now is the time to set your life’s goals. Now is the time to set your standards firmly and then hold to them throughout your life.

I'm willing to be held to the highest possible standard...

In recent years, many seem to have spent their lives protesting. Perhaps they have felt to do this because they have felt repressed or wished to bring about change or have acted out of selfish reasons, thinking that if they tore the house down they might end up with a shingle. Some protesters have said that they have done so in order to be free—free of traditions, free of morals, free of all of the confining standards of society, unrestrained by government or law. Some have been wildly self-indulgent. As Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) noted, they have “habits that bind them and diseases that curse them and blasted reputations that ruin them.”

Those who have succumbed to this kind of personal disaster often find that the balance in their lives becomes somewhat tilted and uneven. Many people expend far too much precious energy in protesting the rules. Since they did not make the rules, some feel that they should not be restricted by them. Others make a game of testing the fences to see what they can get away with. Some think that by breaking the rules they somehow become stronger or independent. Those who fight the rules spend much time and energy trying to express independence in their quest to find identity. And having traveled far down this road, they find that this is not the road to freedom but to slavery.

Talents, gifts of expression, and precious time are exhausted in swimming against too many tides. I have no hesitancy in suggesting that young men can learn to express themselves better through excellence in the classroom or on the playing field than in gangs or in immoral behavior. Young women can obtain a better identity and receive better notice through academic excellence and artistic expression than through immodesty of dress.

There are times when each of us has to have some gumption to take a stand as to what we wish to preserve or change in order to maintain our self-respect and not be as “a reed shaken with the wind” (Matt. 11:7). We need to take our great stands in life on moral issues and not kick against insignificant matters, appearing to be eccentric or unbalanced or immature. We lose much credibility and strength, and we risk being weighed on an uneven balance, when, Don Quixote–like, we go around “tilting windmills.”

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.

Next to family and Church, the community probably has the most powerful influence on an individual's moral sensibilities. The moral standards of a community determine the nature of the entertainment allowed and the types of magazines and books sold in the community. In fact, U.S. courts of law use prevailing community standards to judge whether or not materials are pornographic.

...If we choose to overlook or ignore our community responsibilities, we may well be abdicating control of the influences on our families to others. Our standards and values can be an influence for good in our community-but only when we become involved and share that influence.

Jesus never lowered his standards, but he always started where people were.