Vision and work will ensure success
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OREM, UTAH
In two days, the Thomas S. Monson household brought home three honorary doctoral degrees.
On May 1, President Monson and his wife, Sister Frances J. Monson, were awarded honorary degrees by Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. His was an Honorary Doctorate of Communication; hers an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.
The next day at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, President Monson was awarded an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree.
During UVU's commencement exercises on May 1, President and Sister Monson, along with Phyllis Jordan Christensen, were the first recipients of honorary doctorates awarded by the institution since it became a university last July.
The ceremony was held in the university's McKay Center, named in honor of David O. McKay, ninth president of the Church. Among special guests were members of President and Sister Monson's family and his counselors in the First Presidency, President Henry B. Eyring and President Dieter F. Uchtdorf and their wives, Sister Kathleen Eyring and Sister Harriet Uchtdorf.
In introductory remarks, President Monson turned toward the university's interim president, Elizabeth Hitch, and newly appointed president, Matthew S. Holland, who will assume his duties June 1, and said, "I express to you my sincere appreciation and that of my dear wife, Frances, for the privilege which is ours to be a part of these services today and to be presented with honorary degrees. We are filled with deep humility and great gratitude."
To the graduates, President Monson said, "My friends, you are living in one of the most precious and privileged periods of all human history — a period of change and of challenge and of infinite promise. …
"Today you will lay aside cap and gown — the traditional symbols of academic accomplishment. You will look back with pride on your achievements and will look forward with hope to the future. In the near future many of you will enter the various workplaces for which you have trained. Some of you may go on to further schooling, including graduate work, before you embark on a career, but you will leave this chapter in your life and will move on."
He suggested three guideposts to assist the graduates in their respective journeys through life: glance backward, reach outward and press forward. He spoke of each in turn.
Glance backward. "As you look at your life thus far, you will learn from past mistakes, whether they be yours or those of others. You will recognize also that many people have helped you reach this point in your life. Give thanks to them — your family, your friends, your teachers and others. Express gratitude to those professors who have planted the seeds of learning and of curiosity in your fertile minds and have instilled within you the skills and knowledge you will need to succeed."
President Monson emphasized that he suggested merely a glance at the past, saying it is not practical to think one can return to dwell in it.
Reach outward. "To find real happiness, we must seek for it in a focus outside ourselves," President Monson declared. "No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellow man. Service to others is akin to duty, the fulfillment of which brings true joy.
"We do not live alone — in our city, our nation or our world. There is no dividing line between our prosperity and our neighbor's wretchedness. Try as some of us may, we cannot escape the influence our lives have upon the lives of others. Ours is the opportunity to build, to lift, to inspire and to lead. …"
Press forward. "Whatever part you choose to play on the world stage, keep in mind that life is like a candid camera; it does not wait for you to pose," President Monson declared.
"Learning how to direct our resources wisely is a high priority. We don't have to keep up with change — we have to keep ahead of it."
Of obstacles, President Monson said that each person must press forward "for we understand full well that complaining is not thinking. Ridiculing is not reasoning. Accountability is not for the intention but for the deed. No person is proud simply of what he or she intends to do. …
"You may sometimes be tempted to say, 'Will my influence make any difference?' " He shared the account of Elgin Staples, who was stationed on a destroyer in the Pacific Theater in World War II. His mother worked in an arms plant in Ohio. "Every morning before she went to work, she would pray, 'Grant that whatever I do today may be helpful to our country and to my boy.'
Elgin Staples went down in the Pacific off Guadalcanal when his ship was torpedoed. Many were killed. He clung to a life preserver and floated to a rescue vessel, from whence he was extricated from the ocean. He hauled up the life preserver with him and claimed it as his most valuable possession. Later he found that that life preserver had been made, inspected and packed back home in Akron, Ohio, by his own mother."
Concluding his address, President Monson said, "My young friends, may you understand the real meaning of commencement. You, here and now, with diploma in hand, commence the next stage of your lives.
"You will continue learning after you leave today, for to cease learning is to cease existing. And the best way to prepare for your future does not consist of merely dreaming about it. Great men and women have not been merely dreamers; they have returned from their visions to the practicalities of replacing the airy stones of their dream castles with solid masonry wrought by their hands. Vision without work is daydreaming. Work without vision is drudgery. Vision coupled with work will ensure your success."
