Do not confuse the preoccupation of worry and anxiety with the preoccupation involved in exercising faith. When your mind is prone to dwell on the adverse consequences of events which you assume you have very little control over, that is worry. In contrast, if your mind dwells on the possible consequences of various courses of action which you will control to a great extent, you are exercising faith.

BEWARE OF HE WHO TRIES TO POISON YOUR MIND AGAINST ANOTHER UNDER THE PRETENSE OF HELPING YOU. THE CHANCES ARE A THOUSAND TO ONE HE IS TRYING TO HELP HIMSELF.

South African poet and painter Breyten Breytenback tells of a Black man named Freedom who was the property of a one-legged slave owner in the days before the abolition of slavery. Whenever the owner bought a new pair of shoes, he gave the left one, which he couldn’t use, to Freedom. Eventually, wearing two left shoes deformed Freedom’s right foot, and he was permanently crippled by the "generosity" of his master. Don’t be fooled by people who attempt to further their own interests under the guise of helping you. Listen to advice from others, thank them for their interest, and make up your own mind about what is best. Follow their advice if it fits with your plan for your life, but don’t hesitate to discard it if it doesn’t. In all the world, there is only one individual who knows what is best for you, and that person is you.

...if you learn to think straight, you can begin at any point where you are today and apply some of these basic principles to help in the mighty and heavy responsibilities of life. And if you are living righteously and worthily, in such a way that you can supplicate the Lord for direction, according to President Lee, you can expect to have divine inspiration and direction.

I would ask our Heavenly Father to bless you with the instinctive desire to plead with him in prayer that you might come to the point in your life that you are thinking straight. For straight thinkers, my brothers and sisters, do not make serious mistakes in life. One who is thinking straight does not have moral problems. One who is thinking straight really does not have problems with the Word of Wisdom. He doesn’t have problems paying tithing. He doesn’t have problems with being righteous and good.

As you build your bank while you are here at this great university, be willing to struggle, and really struggle if necessary, and ask your Heavenly Father to bless you to be a good thinker, a straight thinker. Then when you are called upon to be the bishop of your ward or to be a member of the high council of the stake or to be the president of your elders quorum or to preside over the Relief Society or the Primary or the Young Women organization, you will be able to bless those who will look to you for leadership.

How do we learn to think straight? The book of Proverbs has a little guide that might be helpful: “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise” (Prov. 19:20). I would suggest that straight thinking probably begins with careful listening. It seems to me that those men I have associated with who have seemed to have the instinctive ability to think straight are men who are very good listeners and are able to extract, as they receive counsel and instruction, those principles that will be eternally important in their lives.

There are those who become professional thinkers. I don’t want to encourage that. So that you don’t misunderstand me, I would like to quote Brigham Young:

“Some think too much, and should labor more. Others labor too much, and should think more, and thus maintain an equilibrium between the mental and physical members of the individual; then you will enjoy health and vigor, will be active, and ready to discern truly, and judge quickly. Is it not your privilege to have discernment to circumscribe all things, no matter what subject comes before you, and to at once know the truth concerning any matter?” (Journal of Discourses, 3:248).

Sloppy and inconclusive thinking becomes a habit. The more one does it the more one is unfitted to think a problem through to a proper conclusion.

The third-rate mind is happy only when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is happy only when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is happy only when it is thinking.

The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.

[James Madison] was not trained in any particular profession, but he was widely read and capable of clear and independent thought, remarkably unburdened by prevailing assumptions.