Jeffrey R. Holland on Determination
“Though nothing in our lives seems to require the courage and patient long-suffering of those early Latter-day Saints, still almost every worthwhile endeavor I can imagine takes something of that same determination. Certainly an education does, including paying off your student loans. But it can be done. I’ve done it. It just takes time. Even love at first sight–if there is such a thing–is nothing like love after nineteen years, seven months, and eleven days, if my marriage to Sister Holland is any indication. Indeed “the best is [always] yet to be” (Robert Browning, “Rabbi Ben Ezra”). In that sense Troilus, whose impatient love for Cressida makes him something of a basket case, teaches us a valuable lesson. “He that will have a cake out of the wheat must tarry the grinding,” Pandarus says to Troilus. “Have I not tarried?” Troilus pouts. Pandarus: Ay, the grinding; but you must tarry the bolting. Troilus: Have I not tarried? Pandarus: Ay, the bolting; but you must tarry the leavening. Troilus: Still have I tarried? Pandarus: Ay, to the leavening; but here’s yet . . . the kneading, the making of the cake, the heating of the oven, and the baking; nay, you must stay the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips. [Troilus and Cressida, act 1, scene 1, lines 14ff] The baking of life’s best cakes takes time. Don’t despair of tarrying and trying. And don’t “burn your lips” with impatience. Let me say just one bit more about the modern tragedy of sweethearts who will not tarry. It is of increasing alarm to me.” Jeffrey R. Holland, However Long and Hard the Road, BYU Devotional Address, January 1983
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