Suggestions to find happiness and achievement
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PROVO, UTAH
In his address, he shared seven suggestions, gleaned from personal experiences and observing others, that help students find happiness and achievement during their college experience.
"None should be surprising and all might be self-evident," he said. "All are significant and deserve our attention."
1. Self-awareness.
"All of us need to have a clear awareness of who we are, what we represent, and how we affect and influence others," he said. "At BYU, virtually all of us understand that we are literally spirit children of our Heavenly Father. This insight should and must color all decisions and choices we make in our lives, including and especially how we treat others in our families, classes, Church groups, neighborhoods and certainly strangers as well."
An important part of being self-aware is to understand how individuals influence for good or ill others around them by how they act, speak and respond, President Samuelson said.
2. Self-control.
Drawing from a quote from President David O. McKay, President Samuelson spoke of the importance of self-mastery, emphasizing the importance of developing one's character by keeping one's body clean and undefiled, regulating tempers and subduing passions.
"While President McKay did not live during the time of the Internet, texting, tweeting, reality television, MP3 players or social networking, the principles he taught are just as vital today as they were in the 20th century. We all know the blessings of appropriate self-control and the heartache attached to addictions or indiscretions of every kind."
President Samuelson quoted from Mosiah 4:30: "If ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in the faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming of our Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish."
3. Service.
Using President Thomas S. Monson as an example of active service to others, President Samuelson shared the importance of showing compassion by reaching out to others as the Savior would.
Whether it is through visiting the weary and forsaken, laying hands on the heads of those in need, providing counsel or helping another in any way, it is through service that individuals are able to fill the fundamental responsibility each individual has to serve.
4. Spirituality.
"As I hope it is very clear to everyone in this academic community, we aspire to strengthen your testimonies and spirituality with every bit as much emphasis as we strive to have you experience the thrill of scholarly achievement in your chosen disciplines," President Samuelson said. "Just as you should not be satisfied with an education that omits essential elements of mastery in your chosen major or emphasis, you should not leave BYU without your testimony being strengthened and your gospel knowledge being greatly enhanced."
5. Scriptures.
"One of the best ways to enhance your spirituality and gospel understanding is by regularly, frequently and reverently feasting upon the scriptures," he said. "It is one thing to read the scriptures because we have been asked or charged to do so. It is an entirely different matter to search them to find answers and understanding for our own problems, challenges and possibilities."
6. Scholarship.
"It would be fair to suggest that even though we take faith, testimony, dating and marriage, Church activity and spirituality very seriously, we do not use these as an excuse to detract from our standards of excellence in scholarship for students and faculty alike," he said. "While we strongly encourage ... your active involvement in service, religious observance and finding an eternal companion, you must never forget that your primary reason for being at BYU is to make the most of the academic opportunities afforded you that will never again be possible in the same way they are now. How well you do in your studies will ... in large part help determine the possibilities available to you in the future."
7. Standards.
"The concept of high standards is an aspect of everything we do at BYU," he said. "Of special note and significant importance is our Honor Code to which everyone at BYU has subscribed and pledged to follow. ... Some would wish to devote time and energy to quibbling about a detail here or an emphasis there. In reality, we should be focused on what our own honor and integrity mean to us. In the abstract, very few, if any, in our campus community would advocate for dishonesty, immodesty, disrespect for others, slovenly behaviors or appearances or other disagreeable attitudes or actions."
President Samuelson asked students to stay away from the line of deviance and to recommit to living and acting, even of thinking and feeling, as individuals have agreed to do in accepting a part of the BYU community.
Most of all, President Samuelson spoke of the great lives students are living, and encouraged individuals who are struggling with one or more of the points he mentioned, to keep trying and do their best.
Sister Samuelson emphasized the importance of remembering and honoring covenants as individuals stand as witnesses of God through following the Savior's example and listening to, obeying and following the prophet.
"You have missions and miracles to perform for your Heavenly Father and prophecies to help fulfill," she said. "As you complete your education here, you will go out into the world ... You are the future leaders of the Church, your communities and, most important, your future families."
