What Will it Matter a Hundred Years From Now! – Sunday, March 26, 1944
Not infrequently we hear someone who shrugs off a puzzling situation with the comment: “A hundred years from now what will it matter!” This, of course, is one of those ready-made platitudes by which we by-pass those facts we don’t want to be bothered with facing. But it’s a good question if we’ll ask it seriously: “A hundred years from now what will it matter?”
In many ways our lives would be very different if we would give the long-time test to some things we do and say, to some of the things we read and think, to some of the ambitions and aspirations we have, to some of the objectives we cherish. We are disposed to devote much time and energy to things that won’t matter much next year, or even tomorrow, to say nothing of a hundred years from now. We are often given to driving ourselves toward goals that aren’t worth arriving at when we get there. We are given to eating our hearts out for things our neighbors have, or that we think they have, which we pay a high price to acquire, and which, with the passing of many days, often count for little.
Perhaps it’s a good time to ask the question: Where will we be a hundred years from now? Specifically, no man knows; but we will still be ourselves, and we will still think our own thoughts. A hundred years from now it isn’t going to be any easier to run away from ourselves than it is now—and so we had best not count on the passing of time to rid ourselves of ourselves. A hundred years from now the decisions we make today will still be part of the record. And the trivial things for which we have given much, the small talk in which we overindulge, and some of the things some people have sold themselves for, will all be known for their worthlessness.
Some things we thought were important, we’ll know were exceedingly unimportant, and some of the things to which we didn’t give much attention we’ll come to learn mattered a great deal, and our neglect will accuse us. But there is an over-all purpose and an inevitable justice which assure us that some of the things which clutter our lives and confuse our thoughts now, won’t forever stand in our way, so long as we keep faith, reach for the ideals of truth—and learn to live it and to take it a day at a time. If we can get through this ever-present day, and keep moving in the right direction, a hundred years from now time will have sifted out much of the chaff and disposed of many problems, healed many wounds, quieted many sorrows, and dissolved many of our little fears; and time will have written the real values on many things on which we have now fixed false price tags.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, March 26, 1944, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1944.
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March 26, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,762