On Acquiring a Reputation – Sunday, July 09, 1944
Reputations are built on many factors—some of them unpredictable. A good many men have lived their lives and gone to their graves reputed for things for which they never would have chosen to be known. Some who would like to have been thought of as great dramatic artists have, by some circumstances come to be typed as comedians. Men of several gifts sometimes become best known for the gift which they themselves esteem the least.
There are some whose avocations catch the public fancy, whereas their vocations are lost in obscurity and disinterest. A single event in one’s life, even though it be seemingly unrelated to all that has gone before and all that follows, may fix a reputation—desirable or undesirable. Ofttimes young people acquire reputations of one kind or another early in life. For example, a student, having in the beginning of his school career become known as a conscientious scholar, is likely, from then on, to find the way much easier. The reverse is also true. Virtually the same answer to the same question may bring a higher grade to a student of good reputation than to one who has not established a good reputation. This may not be just, in a sense, but it is nevertheless the way it often works in practice. Good reputation has a tendency toward leveling obstacles, and is often accepted at face value, while poor reputation multiplies difficulties. And young people who, by some foolishness or thoughtlessness or some deliberate folly, acquire a reputation of the kind they wouldn’t be proud of, are needlessly complicating their own lives and closing doors in their own faces.
Every time others think of them a suggestion of doubt concerning them may arise. This is why carelessness in youth is often more serious than some have supposed. Fighting through life against an unsavory reputation, whether deserved or not, is difficult and discouraging. And some things which, in our thoughtlessness, we may have supposed were harmless, often cling as stubbornly as nicknames, no matter how we try to shake them off. Now certainly reputations built on false premises will not be the ultimate basis of justice or judgment. But the fact remains that our lives are in some degree modified by the repute in which others bold us, and once a man gets a rating with his fellow men, once he gets himself pigeonholed, classified in the minds of others, it is difficult to get a reclassification. And so to a young woman, or to a young man beginning his way in life, the only course of wisdom is to avoid the very appearance of evil, as well as evil itself, for the generations have proved that good reputations are exceedingly perishable—while bad reputations are virtually indestructible.
Heard over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, July 9, 1944. Copyright – 1944.
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July 09, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,777