Choosing to Change Now

Last night, after blogging, I really wanted to go to sleep, but then I remembered one thing that a prophet said was more important than sleep. With my head on my pillow and my eyes closed, I reasoned to myself that I had already done a little bit of scripture study, in a sense. I had just read and blogged about one or two verses of scripture, hadn't I? Wasn't that enough? In response, the Spirit asked me whether that I wanted that spirit - the spirit of weariness, of "I've already done enough" - to continue to control me in the afterlife.

Last night, I blogged about Captain Moroni still being Captain Moroni after he died, and how that was pretty cool. The flip-side of that message is that when I die, I'm still going to be the same person I am now. If that's not something I'm okay with, I had better change myself now.

I know that, in the afterlife, there will be opportunities for growth and improvement, but I'm not sure how easily that change will come. And why wait? If the way you are now isn't the way you would like to remain forever, why not start making the desired changes today?

Last night, I had the opportunity to be lazy or to put in a little bit of extra effort to study the scriptures, and I'm glad to say that I made the right choice. I can't remember hardly anything that I had read, but I remember that I chose to read it. It takes far more than one act to overcome a habit of procrastination and laziness, but that one act was a step in the right direction, and the more frequently we make decisions based on how we'd like to be, the sooner we'll become our ideal selves. It's not going to happen overnight, and not even dying is going to bring about the changes we want to see in ourselves, but every time we make a good decision, especially when it's difficult, we change ourselves for the better.

There are many things that I'd like to change about myself, but to be brief and vague, I'd like to be more righteous. It isn't always easy to choose the right, but the more I do it, the more I'll become the person I want to be, and that makes it worth the extra effort.