Masks conceal one’s true identity, allowing that person to act differently without incurring the consequences of having those different actions connected with one’s reputation.  That’s why Batman wears a mask — to protect those he cares about from his enemies who would harm them to get to him.

That’s not necessarily nefarious.  That allows a freedom that couldn’t be found with concern over the consequences of one’s actions.  And that’s the key: concern over consequences.  You need the mask so others won’t connect what you do with your reputation.  But if you were willing to accept whatever consequences came from your actions, you wouldn’t need the mask.  You could simply live as you would while others have full view of who you really are.

We naturally shy away from such circumstances.  We all have a deep-seated need to belong, and it’s easier to belong when you do what everyone around you does — or what everyone around you expects you to do.  Wearing a mask allows you have one identity you present to others so you conform to their expectations while in reality holding a different identity that would incur consequences from others if only they knew about that different identity.

I’m not suggesting all masks are bad.  Who doesn’t like Batman?  I’m just saying we need to concern ourselves with how we use masks.  We need to understand what we’re really doing with the masks we choose to wear.  We need to live with intention.

As I apply that principle to myself, I see the need to put away a mask I’ve been wearing for myself.  I’ve thought of myself as a solid performer in my work, someone who always delivers.  But recent experience suggests otherwise.  I may have never failed to deliver in a previous time, but times have changed.

What happened?  I’m not entirely certain.  I think part of it is my singleness.  Without needing to perform at a higher level needed to support a family, it’s been easier to accept performing at a lower level while maintaining within my psyche an identity that differs from reality.  I’ve been wearing a mask so I can feel better about myself.

This is one mask I don’t need to wear, because wearing it means living a lie.  It’s better to live in truth and embrace who I really am, an imperfect man who experiences setbacks but who also has the potential to rise above those setbacks and conquer whatever challenge lies before him.  Embracing that truth means true freedom, because that embrace allows me to live without concern for the consequences of others seeing me as I truly am.

What masks do you wear?  Have you established for yourself a space of false security so that others will think about you in a certain way or so that you can feel good about yourself?  How about having others think about you in that way because you really are that way?  How about feeling good about yourself by embracing who you really are?

Many of us wear a mask we shouldn’t be wearing.  Let’s embrace changes in ourselves so we can really see ourselves as we should be, or let’s embrace our actual self as our ideal.  Acquiring and maintaining that match produces self-esteem.  Combine that with living with intention, and you’re on your way to your best life.

Leave the mask alone.  Embrace the freedom that comes from embracing truth.  You’ll feel better about yourself, better your life, and better about your future.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

I particularly like how President Nelson tied his message of preparation to the principles of preparation Captain Moroni followed.  And the first principle President Nelson examines is creating places of security.

President Nelson defines a place of security as “anywhere you can feel the presence of the Holy Ghost and be guided by Him.”  Of the different places of security he describes — home, stakes, and temple — your home is the most important.  Stakes and temples offer great spiritual security.  But your home is a place of both temporal and spiritual security.  It’s the place of security to which you repair most often and over which you have the most control.

So what control are you exercising over your home?  Is it a place to which you can resort physically, financially, emotionally, and most importantly spiritually?  If you find like me that you have more work to do, then get busy.  Make your home a true place of security.

We’ve long talked on this program about how your focus determines your reality.  How you think creates the life you live.  So to prepare places of security in your life, you need to prepare your mind with the right thinking.

President Nelson extolled faith as the wellspring of the most effective thinking.  He referenced the recent earthquake in Salt Lake to exemplify the need for a solid foundation that can withstand the spiritual shaking that comes to everyone.  Faith in Jesus Christ is the ultimate spiritual foundation.  As President Nelson declares, “we can stand ‘steadfast and immovable’ because of our faith.”

Staying on the covenant path always increases faith.  Resisting the sway of enticements to step off the covenant path requires us to exercise faith.  And exercising faith always increases faith.  Additionally, President Nelson proclaims “regular immersion in the Book of Mormon” as “our latter-day survival guide.”

But President Nelson cited God as the ultimate source of security.  Said he,

So how are you preparing your mind to create places of security?  How are you exercising your faith?  How often are you immersing yourself in the Book of Mormon?  Are you seeking and receiving the personal revelation you need in your life?

These activities require constant and consistent dedication.  We can’t, for example, have a single spiritual experience and expect a lifetime of spiritual security.  Having places of security means always preparing them.

And as President Nelson points out, Satan is nothing if not persistent, and so we can never stop preparing.  “The more self-reliant we are—temporally, emotionally, and spiritually—the more prepared we are to thwart Satan’s relentless assaults.”  President Nelson never said it would be easy, but he did promise “the future will be glorious for those who are prepared and who continue to prepare to be instruments in the Lord’s hands.”

He then offered these words of encouragement:

Embrace the future with faith!  Partner with the Lord as you prepare your own places of security in your life.  Exercising more and more that faith will surround you with ever increasing levels of peace amid the turmoil to come.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

These false assumptions actually create the struggle with knowing who to marry.  That’s why singles looking for the presence of yes should instead look for the absence of no.

We’re here in mortality to exercise agency.  Our choices in this life determine our situation in the next stage of our eternal journey.  We therefore bear the responsibility for our choices.  

That’s precisely why singles who look for some significant spiritual confirmation often struggle with knowing who to marry.  Insisting God provide some unmistakable sign you should marry So-and-so means God carries responsibility for that decision.  That’s not how it works, so insisting it should work that way only ends in frustration.

We’re here in mortality to make choices.  And we have responsibility for those choices.  Pushing that responsibility back to God defies His plan for His children.  Insisting on some definite spiritual sign says we don’t accept So-and-so until God tells us marrying So-and-so will work out well.  It pushes back to God the responsibility for our choices that rightly belongs to us.

We naturally want the security that would come from God revealing to us So-and-so is someone we should marry.  But that’s not how it works.  A river journey tends to go smoother when you don’t fight the current by paddling upstream.  You can paddle downstream by aligning your assumptions with eternally true principles.  Instead of fighting God’s design for mortality by pushing the responsibility for your choices onto Him, go with the way it’s supposed to work by accepting that responsibility.

Revelation from God comes after you make your own decision and then bring that decision you made to God to seek His counsel on your decision.  God will then respond with yes, no, or maybe. If He answers yes, you’ll feel the strong, unmistakable impression He approves of your decision.  If He answers no, you’ll feel a similarly unmistakable impression He doesn’t approve.  And if you don’t get any strong impression one way or the other, He answers maybe, which means He trusts you to make your own decision.

So unless the Lord answers no, you should go forward with your decision.  If He answers yes, going forward is obvious.  But you should also go forward if He answers maybe.  If your choice would take you too far away from where He wants you, God answers no.  So when He doesn’t answer no, you can walk forward in faith following through on your decision.  Only if He answers no do you need to change course.  So all you really need is the absence of no.

Singles stand in their own way when they insist on the presence of yes when approaching marriage decisions.  But that faulty assumption also retards progress at any stage of the dating journey.  So unless you get that overwhelming sense of no from the Spirit, you should include more people in your circle of friends, and you should casually date more of those friends more often.

Especially in the early stages of the dating journey, you don’t need to receive revelation for every choice you make.  Some might extend that to deciding who to marry.  Regardless of how you feel about that idea, looking for the absence of no will have you making more progress more quickly in your dating journey.

So if you’ve been waiting for the presence of yes before you move forward, it’s time to change your assumptions.  Stop looking for the presence of yes, and start looking for the absence of no.  Walk in faith the Lord will tell you when you’re traveling too far from the path He wants for you.  That walk will breathe confidence in your gait as you gain more experience.  With that experience, you’ll learn, grow, and make more and more better choices.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

These ideas represent important aspects in the journey toward your best life.  In fact, we might even say they form a three-step sequential process for navigating the very heart of that journey.  It's time to commit to excellence.

First, you must decide what you want.  This seems obvious, but so many simply don't execute here.  They simply march ahead in ignorance.

The first of Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people is to begin with the end in mind.  Implicit in such a beginning is clearly delineating what your desired outcome is and is not.  After all, it's hard to hit a target when you don't know what it is.  And if you can't spell it out clearly, then you simply don't know what it is.

Start by writing what you think your best life is, and then step outside yourself and consider whether a stranger would know exactly what you want simply by reading what you wrote.  Writing is a perfect tool for this exercise because writing is great for aiding self-reflection.

And the process of writing a clear definition of what you want — what your best life is — allows you to see what you really do and don't know.  And it provides an opportunity to clarify when you see you don't know.  What does your best life look like, sound like, smell like, taste like, and feel like?  Clarity brings power, so get crystal clear on your destination.

With that clarity, you're ready for the next step.  You must understand why you want what you want.  And that's perhaps more important than just knowing what you want.

Of course, you have to know what you want before you can address why you want it.  But simply knowing what you want is insufficient.  For most things worth having (such as your best life), you must pay a price by overcoming obstacles and conquering challenges.  Your best life won't come easy, and simply knowing your what won't give you the motivation you need to push through.  Knowing your why will.

Again, clarity is power.  The more clear you can get on your why, the more power you can obtain to push through when the going gets tough.  It also allows for self-reflection.  Contemplating the real reason you want something, you might see an easier or more effective means of satisfying that desire or even see it's not worth desiring at all.

Once you're clear on your what and your why, the road to your best life should also be clear, at least for the first few steps.  All that remains is execution.  You must take those next few steps.

But it's not enough simply to go through the motions of doing what needs getting done.  To progress towards your best life, you must travel that road well.  Otherwise, you'll become disoriented.

It's something like the Liahona.  Lehi and his family knew their destination, but when they waned in their commitments, their compass wouldn't point the way, and they quickly became lost.  Only when they repented and reoriented themselves to their commitments did their progress resume.

Once you know your what and your why, you too must orient yourself to a commitment to excellence in all you do as you journey to your best life.  You can't do anything half baked, because it's your best life, not your half-baked life.  It's that commitment to do everything — even the little, seemingly unimportant tasks — with excellence that helps to create your best life.

The road to your best life will never be easy, and it was never meant to be.  But when you decide what you want, know clearly why you want it, and then commit yourself to excellence in literally everything you do, you'll not only put yourself on the road to your best life, but you'll make progress towards it as well.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

That said, many of us are still taxing ourselves.  We are by nature social creatures, so it’s natural to respond to a crisis by nearing ourselves to others.  Yet the current crisis keeps many of us physically apart.  And without some plan to provide for needs, that separation is taxing many beyond their capacity.

We’ve discussed before the basic areas of life, what I call the spirit, the heart, the mind, and the body.  Regardless of the names you employ, these areas each have their own needs, which will tax anyone’s reserves when left unmet.  And the faith that optimistically inspires us to see beyond the current crisis can guide us to solutions amidst the current crisis.

We achieve that result in large measure by answering this question: “What can I do?”  Too many of us, yearning for a return to normal, seek after what we’d like to do had the pandemic not turned the world upside down.  But that thinking won’t help us thrive in our new world.  We must adapt or die.  To thrive in a new reality, we must change our thinking to match the landscape.

For example, before the pandemic hit, I was investigating exercise options.  Then the pandemic eliminated the gym as an option.  But instead of wallowing in my inability, which would just lead me to inaction and its attendant reality lacking results, I focused on answering “What can I do?”  That question led me to using my own body weight for strength training and walking in my neighborhood for cardio.  That combined with changes in diet have led to my first real weight loss success in a long time.

In like manner, we can ask “What can I do?” to address any need in life.  By focusing our attention on what we can do, we empower ourselves not only to conquer the challenges before us but to do so with a smile-laden gusto.  We really can have joy in life regardless of our circumstances.

That power to transcend our troubles resides in agency, God’s gift made meaningful by Jesus Christ.  His Atonement makes it possible to triumph over sin and death, obstacles that separate us from God.  Without that Atonement, our overcoming any obstacle in this world would have no meaning.  We would all unavoidably perish (Alma 34:9).

Of course, such a key component in our eternity did not come about by chance.  It was part of a plan provided before this world was.  What we see now created temporally God first created spiritually (Moses 3:5).  Following that example as we answer the question “What can I do?” will lead us to the plans we need to meet our needs during the coming months.

With so much unknown at present about coronavirus, we can expect the current situation of sequestering and social distancing to last at least through summer.  Do you have the plans and the means in place to meet your own needs during that time?

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail.  But you don’t have to fail.  You have a choice.  You have power within that choice to change your attitude and how you think.  And when you change how you think, you change your life.  You can feel real joy regardless of what negative or pessimistic circumstances surround you.

Don’t tax yourself by failing to plan appropriately for your changed landscape.  Ask yourself, “What can I do?” and then partner with the Lord as you answer that question.  Those answers can structure a plan for meeting your needs for as long as the crisis lasts.  The storm of pandemic may rage on the outside, but you can live with faith, optimism, and confidence on the inside.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Many don’t believe that.  They assume life is the collection of circumstances outside their control.  But that’s why many people aren’t all that happy.

Your focus determines your reality.  Because you can choose what you focus on, you can choose your reality.  True, most don’t choose their circumstances, but that never stopped anyone who lived joyfully from living joyfully.  These people lived their best life because they made different choices with the same circumstances.

Some of us should take a lesson from a farmer.  Farmers don’t choose their circumstances.  They have the soil and the water that’s available.  Their seeds for planting are whatever they are.  The weather will be whatever it will be.  So much of what’s needful for the harvest is outside their control.  Yet with hard work in what they can control, they produce bountiful harvests year after year.

In like manner, we haven’t chosen many of the circumstances of our lives.  What we have is what we have, and it’s often all we have.  But if we work hard in what we can control, we can produce harvests of truly joyful living year after year.  This is what I call your best life.

I can hear many of you now.  What exactly can we control?  Here’s my answer: Standards, attitude, approach.

It starts with standards.  You’ll never design your best life without knowing what’s acceptable and what’s not.  The best delineations between what you’ll tolerate and what you won’t are made after partnering with the Lord to get good with you.  Once you know and accept who you really are and what your personal ministry should be, you can best draw that line between what you’ll accept in your life and what you won’t.  The more clear you make that definition, the more able you’ll be to live the life you intend.

Once you know exactly what you want, you need resolve to do whatever it takes to get it (within the realm of covenant living, of course).  You need the attitude of the victor and not the victim.  That attitude will fire your imagination to design a life you’ll truly enjoy and pull you through to that fulfilling end when the road there gets tough.

Of course, attitude without action will never bring you achievement.  To live a life you design, you must take action.  Working smart as well as working hard requires attention to one’s approach.  Too often we think what we seek must come in one specific way.  But much of life is not path-dependent; there’s often more than one road leading to the top of the mountain.  And sometimes the road that’s best for us to travel is not the one we expect.

With these three elements in place — standards, attitude, and approach — you can decide what you want your life to be and feel the joy that comes from working to make it happen.  Usually that means taking small steps every single day to inch yourself closer to the life you dream.

That’s where many of us fall short.  We don’t do the little things everyday that can near us to our best life.  Then, after a larger block of time has passed, we can’t help but notice we’re left standing on the pier because our ship has long since sailed.

That’s where being clear about your standards, attitude, and approach holds its best value.  Once you’re crystal clear on those elements, what you need to do everyday will be obvious.  Performing those seemingly small and insignificant actions everyday will collect to create the very significant life you design for yourself.

So what are you waiting for?  Get clear, and then get going. None of this happens overnight.  But as you move closer to the life you design for yourself, you’ll feel the joy that comes from making progress.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

As I reflect back on my life, I can’t accurately pinpoint any one trigger that brought me a phenomenal attitude.  The change seems more a process than an event.  That said, I can identify some key elements in my transformation.

Without question, developing a more solid relationship with God has been pivotal.  You can’t have true joy in your life if you’re not good with you, which means you must know who you are.  And that requires knowing who your Heavenly Father is.

When you come to understand who you really are as His child, you’ll realize your power to choose your reality.  We do that when we select our thoughts, our self-talk, and our focus, because these produce our reality.  When I realized how these elements worked in me, I felt empowered to take control.  I could stop settling for mediocrity and start insisting on phenomenal.

That’s when a new attitude emerged within me.  I’ll no longer settle for anything less than a phenomenal life.  I won’t settle for giving anything less than my absolute best.  No longer will I accept failure or unhappiness or anything less than my best as my normal, and I’ll never give up on myself ever again.

I want phenomenal success.  I want phenomenal fulfillment, phenomenal results, and phenomenal relationships.  I want phenomenal for myself!

I can’t settle for anything less, because that’s giving up, and giving up is just plain flat out wrong.  God gave me my gifts and talents not only to better myself but to better the world.  When I refuse to let my light shine, others won’t have the improvement they might have had in their lives.

That’s why I insist on phenomenal in my life.  It’s not about me.  Giving up on myself and failing to achieve my potential means giving up on those who stand to benefit from that achievement.  But when I strive to move closer towards my greatness, I automatically provide positive influence to everyone around me.

And so I can’t accept mediocrity.  I’ll never be perfect, I’ll always fall flat on my face, but to quit trying to live my purpose, to fulfill my personal ministry, and to achieve greatness in my life is unacceptable.  There are just too many people who would suffer, most of whom I’ve never met and likely never will.  But it’s because of them I can’t accept anything less than my absolute best as my normal.  I will never settle for anything other than phenomenal.

I have only one life to live.  This is it for me.  I’ll never get another opportunity to live this life.  God gave my unique combination of gifts, opportunities, and personality to me and me only.  So this is it.  It’s do or die, greatness or bust, phenomenal or nothing.  I must make it happen.

And that’s another key element in my transformation.  The day I realized my life wouldn’t improve until I owned it was life changing.  All the energy I’d wasted wishing my circumstances were better I should have spent wishing I were better.  Instead of wishing for less problems, I should have wished for more skills.  Instead of wishing the result I wanted would just come to me, I should have been working to make it happen.

Of course, I struggle where everyone else struggles — with the natural man.  We’re all our own worst enemy.  But working hard is the cost of entry to anything worthwhile.  And so I put my shoulder to this wheel because I know people’s lives will suffer if I stop.

The best part is I’m not the only one.  What’s possible for me is possible for you.  If you want this transformation for you, you can have it.  Embrace true foundational principles, do the work you need to do, and you’ll improve your life.  And when you truly surrender yourself to that process, you too will have phenomenal.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

Birthdays are a particular time of year for everyone.  But for many LDS singles, birthdays remind them they’re another year older and no less single.  That particular aspect gives me pause as I see another birthday approaching me.

I get reflective around birthdays.  I think about my experiences over the past year.  I think about the relationships I have as well as the ones for which I am still searching.  Most of all, I think about how I've changed.  Am I a better person than I was a year ago?

I'd like to think I am.  But in truth I’m never quite sure.  There is one thing, however, about which I am sure.  Whatever comes my way, I know the Lord has prepared me for it.  I know that the hardship, whatever it may be, will only leave me stronger so long as I choose not to be defeated by it.  I know I’ve been prepared for such a time as this.

My mother’s condition drives part of my reflections.  I've spoken before about my mother in this forum.  But now things have taken a severe turn for the worse.  A few days ago, my mother tried to kill herself.

Although it failed to end her life, her attempt has rocked the world of all who know and love her.  It's not the dying part that's disturbing. Everyone dies eventually.  It's her choosing to leave all of us that's disturbing.

I don't think anyone can really know exactly what's going on in anyone else's head.  But I do feel the pain my mother has experienced over the past few years – pain the doctors can't diagnose and have never treated effectively – drove my mother to her disturbing choice.  Whether or not that drove her, I don’t blame her.

That said, I can't begin to describe all the emotions that have run through me.  But I can begin to have faith that the Lord is still in control and ultimately won't allow anything to veer too far outside His plan.

Of course, along with the emotional roller coaster come reflective moments.  The reflection I would engage normally with a birthday around the corner is now deepened.  And that's not altogether a bad deal.

My first impression is to follow Nephi's example and say I don't know the meaning of all things but I do know the Lord loves me (see 1 Nephi 11:17).  And I feel fine with that.  My experiences as an LDS single that lead me not to need to know the end from the beginning with regards to my eternal companion translate very well here. Trust in the Lord in any context is still trust in the Lord.

I also know my experiences in learning how to respond positively to the challenges of LDS singles life have made me a better man.  And those improvements have prepared me for this moment in which I need to be strong not only for myself but also for others I love.

For instance, I’ve supported my father as he struggles with these events.  More than anything, I’ve provided a listening ear.  But I’ve also translated what I've learned from being single so long — the knowledge gained from experience that has made me a better man — into the lives of others as well as my own.  The result is a new perspective that provides strength, hope, and courage for everyone.

To say things could be better is the understatement of the year.  Yet overall I don't feel discouraged or depressed.  I have the quiet confidence within me everything will somehow result in good for everyone.

Many of us tend to get so caught up in our own lives we don’t see the great tapestry God is weaving with us.  He is preparing each of us not only for the challenges we’ll face ahead.  He is preparing each of us to be a light that can shine brightly for those whose hope is dimming. He’s preparing us for times such as these.

People do not light candles to hide light but rather to let light shine so that all may see (Matthew 5:15).  We all have goodness to share, gifts the Lord has endowed within each of us not only to help ourselves grow but also to help others along in their journey.  When we share those gifts with others, we give the light of hope to others and the light of courage to ourselves.  And that will bring us more joy in our journey.

Halloween!  That frightful time of year we embrace with a spirit of good fun means dressing up in costumes and of course eating lots of holiday-themed food.  And let's not forget the trick-or-treating.

But while we all spend one day a year approaching fearful sights with a gleeful sort of playfulness, many spend the other 364 days of the year cowering to fear.  Can we bring to every day of the year the same sort of playfulness that we bring to Halloween?

We all have our fears.  One of the biggest fears many LDS singles have is the fear of never marrying.  Whether that fear or another haunts you most, you’ll never conquer your fear by cowering to it.  To conquer your fear, you must take and use the power you already have within yourself.  You must face your fears.

To start, you have great reason for courage. You’re not on your journey alone.  Your Heavenly Father has provided a Savior Who loves you so much that He never could abandon you, let alone would.  And that Savior Who created the universe is a powerful ally.

If you truly trust in that all-powerful Creator, if you truly have faith in Him, if you truly believe Him, you’ll never feel fear.  And that’s simply because you won't be able to.  Faith and fear cannot exist in the same space at the same time.

So when the Lord promises He’ll bless you, you can rest assured He’ll fulfill His promises.  And He won't just fulfill them in part; He'll fulfill them down to the dot of the last I and the cross of the last T.  So great will be your blessing that, when that glorious day finally comes, you’ll wonder how it ever was that you doubted Him.

And many of those promises are not just for the next life but for this life.  Yes, a few may have to wait for eternity, but I firmly believe that 99% of us can have their promised blessings here and now in mortality.  You may doubt and even laugh as did Abraham's wife Sarah, but the Lord will fulfill every syllable of every word of every promise that He makes to you. Period.

How do you believe that?  How do you generate such faith in the Lord and in His promises that you continue to believe fervently even when everything around you seems to say the exact opposite?

First, approach the Lord as did the father with the mentally disturbed son who exclaimed, "Lord, . . . help thou mine unbelief" (Mark 9:24).  You’re never alone in your journey, so don’t try to go it alone. Walk with Him who gave His all so you could succeed in your ultimate journey.

Second, take action.  The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that faith is a principle of action.  That means you cannot have faith if you just wish and wait.  To increase your faith, you must increase your action.

This is why you approach the Lord first.  When you partner with Him, He’ll help you understand the next step you need to take in your journey.  When you then act on that revelation and take that next step, you walk by faith toward a bright and glorious future, one with the blessings He wants to give you.

Walking by faith doesn't mean never feeling fear, but it can bring courage.  And courage means doing what you need to do even though you may feel afraid.  When you walk by faith, you can face your fears with the confidence He will never abandon you.

If all of us were to step back and observe the situation, we’d see that all fear does is prevent us from taking the next step in our journey.  But whatever your fears are, you still control what response you will provide.  Will you allow your fear to control you and cower from your next step?  Or will you control you and take that next step?

When you take that next step, your courage grows, your faith grows, and you can walk and take more next steps with more confidence.  The more you act, the more your faith grows, the more your confidence grows, and the more you can live with the surety that the Lord will fulfill all of His promises to you.  And that will bring you more joy in your journey.

The many changes announced in the most recent General Conference bring a feeling of starting a new chapter in LDS history.  I’m not certain most of us anticipated such sweeping announcements.  Yet those of us with faith will embrace the new reality and run with it.

In like manner, life brings to each of us sweeping, unanticipated changes.  Perhaps you’ve reached a certain age without getting married.  Or that marriage you thought would last forever won’t.  Or you experience a job loss.  The variety of surprises life can bring has no end.  And they often come when we least expect them.

I believe the best response to unanticipated, unwanted events is the same best response to the most recent General Conference.  We need to have faith to embrace the new reality and run with it.  And when that new reality radically differs from our past, we need to let go of the past and start again.

Letting go can be one of the most difficult challenges in life.  You like the way things were.  You were comfortable.  And you don’t want to have the extra work changes often requires.

Yet successful people never confront life as they wish it would be.  They confront life as it really is.  They do the best they can with what they have.  And they make it work.

And what exactly do you have?  You have your Heavenly Father, with Whom you can counsel through prayer.  You have the Lord Jesus Christ, Who suffered so you could have new life.  You have the Holy Ghost, Who can provide revelation, comfort, and strength.  You have angels and the powers of heaven upon which you can call when you keep your covenants.  You have family, friends, and the Church which can each provide their own measure of support.

Considering what you have, is there any challenge you cannot overcome?  As the apostle Paul declared, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13).

Letting go of the past is often the first step in embracing a new reality.  It can also be one of the most difficult.

Earlier in my life, I had a really sweet job.  I worked remotely for an East Coast company while living on the West Coast.  I had complete mobility both with my physical location and (within reason) my schedule during the day.  I also made some good money with the gig.  I had residences in two different states and traveled between them at will.  Life was sweet.

Then came the word from HQ.  Financial conditions necessitated massive layoffs.  Half of my peers would lose their jobs.  I thought my superior job performance and delivery record would keep me safe.

Then I got my notice.  I was the first to lose his job.  The shock left me speechless.  For some time thereafter I was paralyzed.  That paralysis evolved into a deep depression as other life events knocked me down.  You can tell I’m not depressed today, so what happened?  How did I leave my depression?

I took action.  I started doing what the Lord inspired me to do, whatever it was.  Completing even small tasks built my confidence and helped me to regain my faith in myself and my future.  Slowly but surely, with the help of the Lord, I began to process of rebuilding my life.  I started again.

Accepting that whatever bad thing happened to you actually happened to you requires a great deal of courage.  But holding on to a past that doesn’t resemble the present reality is just extra baggage holding you back from moving forward in life.

Sometimes you need to take a new approach.  And sometimes that new approach involves starting again.

I’ve had to start again in my own life at least seven times.  That’s just the number of unanticipated change events from my life that come quickly to mind.  I might find more if I really stop and think about it.

Still, it’s fair to say I’ve got a fair amount of experience with starting again.  Here’s one of the lessons I’ve learned — starting again usually seems daunting and overwhelming at first but always gets easier once you dig in and start embracing the change with a positive attitude and effective actions.

It’s also helpful to remember everything you have.  As I mentioned earlier, you have many in your corner rooting for you because they love you and want you to succeed.  You can conquer any life-altering challenge before you when you start again.  Embracing the change and making the most of it will help you to become everything your Heavenly Father wants you to become.  And that will bring you more joy in our journey.