We must learn to separate need from greed...We must not allow our yearnings to exceed our earnings.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of distinguishing between what we truly need and what we merely desire, warning against letting our desires outpace our financial means.
Thomas S. Monson's quote encourages individuals to reflect on their desires in relation to their actual needs. By learning to differentiate between essential needs and excess desires, we can attain financial stability and make more mindful spending choices. The wisdom shared here serves as a reminder that unchecked greed can lead to financial difficulties and dissatisfaction, while being content with what we genuinely require leads to a more fulfilling life.
In practice
In a financial workshop to discuss responsible spending habits.
Mortality is a period of testing, a time to prove ourselves worthy to return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. In order for us to be tested, we must face challenges and difficulties. These can break us, and the surface of our souls may crack and crumble-that is, if our foundations of faith, our testimonies of truth are not deeply embedded within us.
We are never alone when we stand with our Father in Heaven.
Things which provide deep and lasting happiness and gratitude are the things which money cannot buy: our families, the gospel, good friends, our health, our abilities, the love we receive from those around us.
The face of sin today often wears the mask of tolerance. Do not be deceived; behind that facade is heartache, unhappiness and pain. .. YOU be the one to make a stand for right, even if you stand alone. Have the moral courage to be a light for others to follow.
Gracias, danke, merci - whatever language is spoken, "thank you" frequently expressed will cheer your spirit, broaden your friendships, and lift your lives to a higher pathway as you journey toward perfection. There is a simplicity - even a sincerity - when "thank you" is spoken.
No member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who has canned peas, topped beets, hauled hay, shoveled coal, or helped in any way to serve others ever forgets or regrets the experience of helping provide for those in need.
I came out for exercise, gentle exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on that accursed machine than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view - get hot, juicy, red - like a grilled chop. Get me on that machine and I have to go. I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it.
Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.
When I write, I feel like an optometrist, constantly flipping between lenses and asking, 'Is this better? Is this?' Slowly, the work comes into focus.
When you are fully present with everyone you meet, you relinquish the conceptual identity you made for them - your interpretation of who they are and what they did in the past - and are able to interact without the egoic movements of desire and fear. Attention, which is alert stillness, is the key.
You can accomplish by kindness what you cannot by force.
It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.
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