вЂњBut if ye are prepared ye shall not fearвЂќ ( D&C 38:30). вЂњAnd angels shall fly through the midst of heaven, crying with a loud voice.

Kennedy put the same thought into one of his state of the union messages this way: вЂњThe time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.вЂќ The Boy Scouts say itВ best of all: вЂњBe prepared.вЂќ That isnвЂ™t just cracker-barrel wisdom with us it is theology. There is a line from Dante that says, вЂњThe arrow seen before cometh less rudelyвЂќ ( Divine Comedy). We become unhappy and soon make others unhappy, and before long Lucifer laughs.ДЄs with any other germ, a little preventive medicine ought to be practiced in terms of those things that get us down. We turn inward and look downward, and these greatest of Christlike virtues are damaged or at very least impaired. Then it takes an increasingly severe toll on our spirit, for it erodes the deepest religious commitments we can make-those of faith, and hope, and charity. In fact it can become almost a habit, a way of living and thinking, and there the greatest damage is done. ItвЂ™s frequently a small germ, hardly worth going to the Health Center for, but it will work and it will grow and it will spread. Or to be more precise, I believe it is in Satan, the Prince of Darkness, the Father of Lies. Troubles we all have, but the вЂњgermвЂќ of discouragement, to use FitzgeraldвЂ™s word, is not in the trouble, it is in us. Scott Fitzgerald once made, that вЂњtrouble has no necessary connection with discouragement-discouragement has a germ of its own, as different from trouble as arthritis is different from a stiff jointвЂќ ( The Crack-Up,В 1945). In doing so, however, I wish at the outset toВ make a distinction F. This morning I want to attack double-digit depression. Against a backdrop of hostages and high prices I wish to speak more personally of you and fortify you, if I am able, against doubt-especially self-doubt-and discouragement and despair. IвЂ™m anxious this morning about your problems with school and love and finances and the future, about your troubles concerning a place in life and the value of your contribution, about your private fears regarding where you are going and whether you think you will ever get there. I wish to speak a little more personally of those matters that do not make headlines in the New York TimesВ but that may be important in your personal journal. Fields once said, to вЂњsmile first thing in the morning and get it over with.вЂќ But my concerns for you today are not the national and international ones. With all of this waiting for us we are tempted, as W. Iran, Afghanistan, inflation, energy, jogging, mass murders, kidnapping, unemployment, floods. That is enough to ruin anyoneвЂ™s day and by then itвЂ™s only 6:30 in the morning. I watch an early morning news broadcast while I shave and then read a daily newspaper. In our lives, individually and collectively, there surely are serious threats to our happiness. In doing so I donвЂ™t wish to suggest that there arenвЂ™t plenty of things in the world to be troubled by. I speak of doubt-especially self-doubt-of discouragement, and of despair. I address it here this morning because I know of nothing Satan uses quite so cunningly or cleverly in his work on a young man or woman in your present circumstances. At least I know it can have damaging effects that block our growth, dampen our spirit, diminish our hope, and leave us vulnerable to other more conspicuous evils.

I wish to speak today of a problem that isВ universal and that can, at any given hour, strike anywhere on campus-faculty, staff, administration, and especially students. IВ will speak of you as you are right now and will hope it matters as much to the graduating senior as to the first-semester freshman. But part of what IВ want to stress is that every day counts-including these remaining few in the semester-and that you have thousands of days thereafter.

Furthermore, the year is nearly over and maybe for some an entire college career. I come this morning knowing the semester is nearly over and that what suggestions I offer were perhaps needed months ago. I have wondered if some of your experiences and feelings might even now be very much the same. While such experiences now border on primitive history, fit only for a geology lecture, IвЂ™m nevertheless going ahead. In doing so I have been drawn back to my own days as a student and some of the challenges I faced then. I have thought about you a great deal over the past few weeks and have prayed to know what might be helpful to you. I would like to be quite personal this morning-personal about you and personal about myself.

Why throw away your life so recklessly