By Lindsay Cook
At Tuesday”s (July 31, 2007) devotional, BYU students were counseled to seek the Lord”s will and delight in individuality while they live in a culture where comparison and competition in academic, professional and personal life is overwhelmingly evident.
Merrill J. Christensen, nutrition, dietetics and food science professor, delivered the address to a room full of staff and students in the Joseph Smith Building Auditorium.
Relating to competition in the academic and professional world, and the importance of achieving success, Christensen asked if it was possible to impress the right people without aspiring to the honors of men or seeking to draw attention to oneself.
“Excellence will be obvious to those who need to be impressed,” Christensen said. “To do the highest quality work of which you are capable, sufficient to “impress the right people”, requires compliance with President Hinckley”s counsel to get all the education you can,” he said.
Christensen compared a college education to a large buffet. He said students pay and then serve themselves as much as they want from a large variety and if they still feel hungry it”s his or her own fault.
“How many of you are getting your money”s worth – are getting all the education you can – at the educational and spiritual buffet that is BYU?” he said.
Christensen said the key to dealing with academic and professional competition is to be well prepared, to work hard and to do a person”s best. He repeated the counsel of President Hinckley to “sacrifice anything that is needed to be sacrificed” to qualify to do work in the world, such as getting a good education.
With respect to comparing and competing in a person”s life, he said it is difficult to refrain from comparing oneself to others when a person knows that professors, employers and others are making comparisons.
“Don”t concern yourself with others” assignments or performance,” Christensen said. “You worry about what [the Lord asks] you to do.”
He warned against considering oneself righteous in comparison to what”s going on in the world because the world is rapidly becoming a more wicked place.
“If we are content to simply be better than the world, comparing ourselves to its standards and practices instead of the Lord”s, we may pride ourselves on the widening gap between us and the world,” he said. “…At the same time [we are] dangerously oblivious to the increasing distance between us and the standards of righteousness we have covenanted to keep.”
He said focusing on others” talents, worrying about what rewards they receive and feeling competitive for that recognition, distracts people from their responsibilities. He said it prevents the development of talents and diverts people from fulfilling their mission.
Christensen stressed the importance of individual worth and was overcome with emotion when he expressed how great Heavenly Father”s love is for his children.
“Your value to Him is independent of your body mass index, your accomplishments in arts, academics or athletics, your possessions, popularity, or marital status, your current calling in the Church or any other thing which can be a source of comparison and competition,” he said.
Christensen asked students to pray, to try and make it through a day without a single self reference that draws attention to oneself, to be the answer to someone”s prayer, to serve, to resolve to sincerely compliment and thank someone each day and try to go a day without finding fault in others.
“May you seek the praise of God and do always those things that please Him. May you cease unhealthy comparison to others and delight in your individuality and uniqueness,” he said. “May you be faithful in your Church assignments and in your individual, personalized ministries, “your own divine missions”, using your unique blend of talents and spiritual gifts to “bless other people in a quiet, unassuming way.”
