A Time to Prepare

This entry is part of my general conference application series.

A Time to Prepare, by Ian S. Ardern
Of the Seventy


I'm using my lunch break to review these general conference talks and record my impressions of them (thanks for reading, btw). What a great use of my time!

Time is never for sale; time is a commodity that cannot, try as you may, be bought at any store for any price. Yet when time is wisely used, its value is immeasurable.

Before I pat myself on the back and congratulate myself on mastering this talk's central purpose, I had better study a bit more.

Elder Ardern encourages us to wisely use our time. In fact, while listening to him give the talk live, I wanted to know more about who Eldern Ardern is. You see, I was intrigued by his soothing Kiwi (New Zealand) accent. Pulling out my smart phone, I turned to Wikipedia to look him up.

Right as my mind drifted from the message to read about the speaker, I heard him say something that caught my attention—you might say I was smartphowned!

It is wonderful to have the means of instant communication quite literally at our fingertips, but let us be sure that we do not become compulsive fingertip communicators. I sense that some are trapped in a new time-consuming addiction—one that enslaves us to be constantly checking and sending social messages and thus giving the false impression of being busy and productive.

I was caught! Sure, I had deleted many games from my phone six months earlier after realizing how much time I was wasting (read more here), but I still found ways to be distracted by that thing!

I paid much closer attention to the rest of his talk after being caught red-handed. I particularly liked the following:

I know our greatest happiness comes as we tune in to the Lord (see Alma 37:37) and to those things which bring a lasting reward, rather than mindlessly tuning in to countless hours of status updates, Internet farming, and catapulting angry birds at concrete walls. I urge each of us to take those things which rob us of precious time and determine to be their master, rather than allowing them through their addictive nature to be the master of us.

I don't think I can write much more now that I'm reminded of the value of time—both yours and mine! I don't know if reading this is a waste of your time, or if there are better things you should be doing, but I'll end here and get back to work.

But I'll still write more tomorrow. Because it's nice to take time to be reminded of how I can improve.