For many people, life is filled with busyness. There’s nothing inherently wrong, of course, with being busy. But it’s also not inherently a virtue—especially when the pursuits that keep us so busy do not reflect our deepest values. Religious leader Thomas S. Monson once said: “Were we to step back … and take a good look at what we’re doing, we may find that we have immersed ourselves in the ‘thick of thin things.’…. Too often we spend most of our time taking care of the things which do not really matter much at all in the grand scheme of things, neglecting those more important causes.”1
We’ve all mistaken the meaningless for the meaningful from time to time. Some things that seem so urgent turn out, in retrospect, to be mere distractions. How do we know the difference between what matters and what doesn’t? There isn’t one right answer, but a little poem by an anonymous poet suggests some wise guidance:
I have wept in the night
For the shortness of sight
That to somebody’s need made me blind;
But I never have yet
Felt a tinge of regret
For being a little too kind.2
Kindness is always the right thing to do; kind is always the right way to be. So many around us need our encouragement and support, our care and kindness. So many carry burdens that are unseen—not because they are hidden, but because we aren’t looking. Kindness lets people know they are seen, they do matter. That may not remove their burden, but it can definitely give them the courage and strength to keep trying. That’s what you’re doing when you act on a kind thought. And the world can’t get too much kindness.
When we look back on the choices we’ve made—at the end of the day and at the end our lives—we’ll surely notice times when we were not at our best, words we wish we could take back, situations we wish we would have handled better. We can’t rewrite the past, but the future is still unwritten. It’s not too late to err on the side of kindness, because one thing is certain: we will never feel “a tinge of regret for being a little too kind.”
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February 13, 2022
Broadcast Number 4,822
The Tabernacle Choir
Orchestra at Temple Square
Conductor
Mack Wilberg
Ryan Murphy
Organist
Richard Elliott
Host
Lloyd Newell
Saints Bound for Heaven
American folk song; arr. Mack Wilberg
Look at the World
John Rutter
All Things Bright and Beautiful
English melody; arr. Dale Wood
Lift Up Your Heads, from Messiah
George Frideric Handel
His Voice as the Sound
American folk song; arr. Mack Wilberg
Love One Another
Luacine Clark Fox; arr. Mack Wilberg
On Great Lone Hills
Jean Sibelius; arr. H Alexander Matthews