We buy books on the most advanced studies of our field of interest, lest the insane introduction classes bore us so thoroughly that we lose hope. Therefore, the Doctrine and Covenants insists that when we seek learning (notice the instruction to focus on learning rather than getting degrees, certifications, recognitions, etc.) “Out of the BEST books”.
We study hard things, we learn not the novice material. Even the children can be expected to read increasingly challenging things rather than popcorn novels day in and day out.
We seek for the top skills and knowledge in our field so that we can expand that field and invent machinery and methods to improve that scientist. Any industrialist should also be a scientist, and any scientist should also be an industrialist. The creation and the created, the theory and the implementation, these must remain as close to one another as possible, and the person who can connect the two, creating both, is the most invaluable worker in that field.
We always seek excellence, and to push the work along, leaving both the product and the method in a more refined form than they were when we came. We seek to use the time of our lives to exponentially improve matters for generations.
This improvement doesn’t mean writing more laws and regulations, but rather getting rid of those. It doesn’t mean writing longer textbooks, but shorter ones. Eliminate the fluff and make all things clear and useful.
To obtain vision, we must expand also to an eternal view, and thus we must obtain and maintain families. We must marry and bare children at any cost. This organization is the eternal organization, and it enlivens, orients, and gives meaning to all things. Wisdom seen outside of a family scenario could and would be better if it were in a family scenario. We would eliminate much wasted time if we organized ourselves into family structures early on in life (as the prophets gave long plead) and sought to build up those structures first and foremost, for this is the root and bedrock of society.
Have you, or have you seen others, who lose the fire of faith, the passion and devotion, for their chosen field of study and labor (or God forbid for their wife and children)? Let that man regain his footings by renewing his vision. Passion isn’t something one finds, but something one develops. Holy passion can be obtained in any field of honest work as one “applies himself unto it”. Prophets have taught that we don’t find a soul mate, but you select someone and make them into your soul mate. They’re taught that there isn’t just 1 right person, but that any male and female living the gospel can be compatible. Similarly, choice of vocation isn’t an eternal deal breaker. Matthew was a tax collector. Luke a physician. We could go on and on of the vary different vocations apostles (prototypical saints) have had. Of course, you can feel your way through and find something that fits your tastes and desires to give and receive in a certain way in your work. Research well your choices before you plunge into them, then be a finisher, because finishing is perhaps even more important than what it is you finish. And most often divorces are not from selecting the wrong person, but from failing to maintain a marriage. Career work can be similar, we can fail to remember the big picture or fail to have the patience to go through the mundane seasons. Elder Holland has encouraged students to stay in their chosen career oath since if it was ok with God before, it’s till ok with him now.
Look to the temple for the outline of success: there we learn the eternal method of redemption which is creation, fall, atonement. These 3 things in that order. We must remember our creation, the beginnings, so that we can leave our fall, our failures and lows, and gain redemption through the atonement of Christ the Lord our God. We must see the creation, or we will never reach atonement, we will never have the faith the work our salvation with fear and trembling. We would never have the faith to become excellent in our vocation and research. Let the man look at the excellence of the field which once inspired him, lest the days of slow mediocrity (which our schools and colleges insist upon) drown us in estranged despair. Since mediocrity is so commonly presented at schools, the main and best hope for younglings is to be exposed to excellence in their homes before they ever go off to school. It is wide to post pone their going off to school through home education in the years before adulthood, or at least until the teen (high school) years. Fill your homes with books about the greatest minds. Teach the children of greatness, not of averages. Instill to them a fighting spirit of conquest industry science liberty and adventure rather than a feeling of being wronged, underprivileged, disadvantaged, wanting special rights and privileges. Purify the child of the entitled dogmas of our time which insist that they are enough and teach them to be more. Show their potential rather than leaving them to wallow in their current knowledge and skills. The trend in school is to find the average number of performance, and seek to bring everyone to that level, which lowers the standards every time another evaluation is performed.
If a person does not work in the highest platform if his chosen career, this is ok. There are no bad jobs, only people bad enough to think they are above them. A person in a basic position can do that job well and can study the trade to learn all about it. A natural consequence of learning more knowledge and skills in your field is often advancement, including desire for whatever other opportunities there are, and ability to obtain therein. Knowledge of one’s field also gives perspective to how important their role is in the operation.
It is also regular and honorable for a person to work in a field of choice and go into the business side of that work. Business is how we live. It’s how we get bread. It’s how we fund things. It’s how we exchange. The only shame in business is if the product you are promoting is one that appeals to men’s vices, or if the business is performed by means of theft. But oh, how dreadful is the man whose only knowledge is how to squeeze profits! Especially if he produces nothing, and only cuts cream from another person’s milk. Yes, services are valuable just like products, but some of these supposed services could hardly be called that. Many a middle man has traveled through life putting on a facade rather than being worth his salt.
It is also very dangerous to work in businesses which have been taken over by government, as government operations usually are unconstitutional, and involve unfair play via grants, subsidies, and all manner of other modes of operation which undermine the work of competitors in that field. Competition is good, but unfair play against them isn’t. Government is the guys who bring the guns to the party. Make no mistake about it, they always carry with them their only incentive: force (and its close cousin, blackmail). Government operations have unbalanced budgets from being virtually unlimited in their funding. They feed into the work of lobbyists and moochers rather than operating on the rule of law. They stress democratic mob rule rather than republican representation, and thus slowly give way to the masses who have learned that they can vote their way into ease and idleness, and soon after that, their economy goes to ruin, and government becomes their king (and never a nice one) rather than their servant. Loud are the voices which call for jobs for the sake of being employed rather than jobs for the sake of giving one’s skill to a company. It is demoralizing to fill positions with needy people rather than skilled people. Only government could afford to operate at such inevitably large loss of profit. Yes, there are positions of work for unskilled laborers, but those jobs are often difficult. 1 man willing to work has 3 jobs whilst being around 10 lazy men who say they can find none. Thus, the scripture reads that to him that hath more shall be given – if is the man himself who allows himself to receive or forbids himself from receiving based on his choices. A man must be willing to have humble beginnings if he is to gain career advancement.
Another disease is the unwillingness to work while going to college, and the fruit of that is a mountain of debt with its decades of slavery, or an unwillingness to enroll in a college, claiming that such is impossible in their situation. The collage one attends need not be the loftiest of names, let it be one which is affordable, and which will provide training adequate to enter the work force at a position which will better meet one’s needs.
Hugh Nibley taught that we should seek not only depth, but breadth. It was said of Nibley that he not only excelled in his field but knew more than others of their fields. To know in only your field is vanity and will taint your views unnecessarily. The master must be something of what was called “a renaissance man”, who sought to know not only industry, not only science, not only literature, not only persuasion if the mind, not only the fields, not only the pen, not only the machine, not only the sport, but all of those. Today we think this is strange and wonder how such could be done without running into mediocrity. But if a person can learn financial strategies to pull himself out of abject poverty, and if he is willing to use some of his free time (rich or poor we all have it, but especially if we are rich) to learn and practice these constructive things, he can succeed in learning them well.
Let man learn his trade and earn his training for that but let him also gain an education history economics good government art sciences music and other blessed things which, as money is taken care of, can be magnified. The uneducated man is one who will fall for the pressures of his day, and his money will slip through his hands as he votes for higher taxes for the supposed public good.
While we don’t have faith in money as a provider for all our needs, we can use money to serve others joyfully. Those who aren’t joyful cannot give full hearted service. Thus, using our money not only to serve others but to bring ourselves joy is important.
