Impatience with Imperfection – Sunday, October 26, 1952
It sometimes seems that we live much of our lives by trial and error. (And, parenthetically, may we observe in passing, when our errors are more numerous than they need to be, our trials are also.) Our own errors are often the ones we best understand and generously make allowances for—but not so always with the errors and inefficiency of others. We often wonder why others don’t do better.
We often look to the past and wonder why they didn’t do things differently. We may look back at earlier models of machines and compare them with present-day products and wonder why they weren’t made better to begin with. And when we look at old roads that wandered a long way around and see how they have now been shortened, we may wonder why those who first made them meandered so much.
But we must remember that most things have humble beginnings. Neither men nor methods, nor products nor processes, nor ideas nor edifices come to mature stature all at once. We have to take thoughts and things and people as they are and help them to move on from where they are—just as we have to let children learn. And before we become too impatient with the imperfections of the past or of other people, we should remember that progress is an eternally slow process.
But it is true that the wisdom and experience of the ages and the wisdom and experience of others, can teach us much. And the more we can learn from the trial and errors of the past, the more we can learn from the experience of others, the more children can learn from parents, the more we can avoid repeating our own errors, the less of heartbreak we shall have, and the more surely, we shall move toward improvement and eternal progress. There is no point in repeating persistently the errors of the past.
We have inherited a great store of lessons already learned if we will only admit them into our lives. And, finally, we should not be too impatient when we fail to find perfection in the past, in the present—or in other people—even as we hope that others will not be too impatient when they fail to find perfection in us.*
*Revised.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station KS L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, October 26, 1952, 11:00 to 11:30 a.m., Eastern Time. Copyright, 1952
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October 26, 1952
Broadcast Number 1,210