Choices

by Kasey Tross

Yesterday morning before the Sunday Morning Session of the semi-annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints began, I took a few moments to write down some questions I hoped to find the answers to during conference that day. 

One of my questions was this: "How can I stay motivated to continue writing and finish my novel?" 

Imagine my surprise and humble gratitude when my question was answered during the first thirty seconds of the first talk by the first speaker- who happened to be the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, no less. 

He said, 

"It has been said that the door of history turns on small hinges, and so do people’s lives. The choices we make determine our destiny." 

For some reason, the thought of a big, heavy door, and those small hinges, and the choices I make each day suddenly opened my eyes. I make a thousand tiny decisions each day, and how many of them impact my writing? How many times do I choose to hop on Facebook rather than work on my writing? Or watch TV at night instead of write? Or do ANYTHING to put off writing? 

Choices are small. They are simple. And as we know, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass." Entire books are written. Or, in my case, not written.

At the end of the day I got even more added encouragement from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, who told me, 

"Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever."

He told me I don't have to be perfect, I just have to keep trying. Even if I don't succeed, trying still counts.

But if I'm not trying- well, to paraphrase a movie I watched the other day, you'll always miss the shots you never even take, right?

So today I'm going to commit to oiling my hinges and making sure that door of my destiny is pushed wide open by the choices I make every day. 

Care to join me? Let's meet back up here tonight for a writing sprint. I need all the motivation I can get. 9pm EST- that's 7pm for you Utahns. ;-)

Let's go! Heaven is cheering us on!