Going to the temple will give us perspective. I find it easy to get lost and derailed. I know that frequent temple attendance will give new thinking to old problems. Sometimes when we are there things look different because we see ourselves differently; no other place can give us such hope.

To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from "What information do I need to convey?" to "What questions do I want my audience to ask?"

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.

In all of this, I suppose it goes without saying that negative speaking so often flows from negative thinking, including negative thinking about ourselves. We see our own faults, we speak—or at least think—critically of ourselves, and before long that is how we see everyone and everything. No sunshine, no roses, no promise of hope or happiness. Before long we and everybody around us are miserable.

I love what Elder Orson F. Whitney once said: "The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience." We should honor the Savior's declaration to "be of good cheer." (Indeed, it seems to me we may be more guilty of breaking that commandment than almost any other!) Speak hopefully. Speak encouragingly, including about yourself. Try not to complain and moan incessantly. As someone once said, "Even in the golden age of civilization someone undoubtedly grumbled that everything looked too yellow."

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power. You can think about only what you know, so you ought to learn something; on the other hand, you can know only what you have thought about.

If daydreaming slips so frequently from meditation into Mittytation, aren't we much better off reading books? That's a comforting thought for those of us who love reading. I'm a literature professor. Reading for me is both vocation and avocation. What better way to improve my time, I flatter myself. But occasionally while reading I get the uneasy feeling that if I looked in the mirror I would see a child sucking on a binky. And each time I teach Emerson's "The American Scholar" I am stung by words like these: "Man Thinking must not be subdued by his instruments. Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too precious to be wasted in other men's transcripts of their readings."

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk.

What is desired is reflection that transpires within everyday lives and that evaluates those lives, assesses values, sets goals, solves problems—in short, that creates examined lives, the only kind that Socrates said are worth living. What is desired is the kind of pondering in the heart recommended repeatedly in the scriptures.

I flatter myself with the notion that we need so many synonyms in order to delineate the subtle nuances of our rich mental activity. Then, with my head in the clouds, I stumble over the disconcerting fact that the most serious pondering I've done recently is whether I'll have fries with that. Suddenly my list of synonyms seems like linguistic overkill, mere lexicological extravagance or featherbedding. When I consider the mindless sensory overload that characterizes our electronic age, I begin to wonder if we need 50 synonyms for thinking any more than Samoan Islanders need 50 synonyms for snow.

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.