On Waiting for Ideal Conditions – Sunday, May 01, 1949
All of us, no doubt, intend to do many things that we never get around to doing. There may be many reasons for this. Sometimes we underestimate our capacity, and hesitate to begin; sometimes we overestimate it, and make more commitments than we can possibly fulfil. Sometimes we sit and wait for supposedly ideal conditions. But so-called ideal conditions rarely come. If the men who have most enriched the world had waited for ideal conditions before beginning their work, we should have had few inventions, few masterworks, few discoveries.
Men have written and painted, thought and planned, worked and searched, often in poverty, sometimes in illness, frequently in unsympathetic surroundings— despite hunger, despite discouragement, despite misunderstanding. There rarely comes, a time in the life of any man when all difficulty, all distraction, and all annoyance are removed. There rarely comes a time in the life of any of us when we cannot find some plausible excuse for not doing something that we could or should be doing. Often people who intend to be generous wait until they are better able to be generous. But it is surprising how their obligations keep pace with their income.
Often people who intend to write spend much time sharpening pencils and clearing desks, waiting for peace and quiet, waiting for an uninterrupted day, waiting for the mood to move—and for many other things which are ideally desirable, but which seldom come all at once. We often wait for more opportune times to set right in our lives some of the more personal things that need setting right. We wait for convenience, or for a time when we think appetites may be less demanding, or for so-called ideal circumstances. And so the hours pass; the days pass; the years pass; and so does life itself, finding us still nursing our intentions. The postponement, the putting off, that always waits for supposedly better times and circumstances, may be the postponement that steals away life itself,
Revised
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, May 1, 1949, 11.30 to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time Copyright 1949.
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May 01, 1949
Broadcast Number 1,028