Remember, you can be exalted without a college degree. You can be exalted without being slender and beautiful. You can be exalted without having a successful career. You can be exalted if you are not rich and famous. So focus the best that you can on those things in life that will lead you back to the presence of God - keeping all things in their proper balance.
Interpretation
True exaltation comes from within and is not dependent on external achievements or appearances.
In this quote, M. Russell Ballard emphasizes that exaltation is attainable irrespective of societal measures of success such as education, beauty, wealth, or fame. Instead, he encourages individuals to focus on their spiritual growth and maintaining balance in life, suggesting that a connection with God and inner fulfillment are the true indicators of a person's worth.
In practice
In a motivational speech about self-acceptance and spiritual growth.
Simply stated, testimony-real testimony, born of the Spirit and confirmed by the Holy Ghost-changes lives. It changes how you think and what you do. It changes what you say. It affects every priority you set and every choice you make.
Attitude is an important part of the foundation upon which we build a productive life. A good attitude produces good results, a fair attitude poor results, a poor attitude poor results. We each shape our own life, and the shape of it is determined largely by our attitude.
There are conversations going on about the Church constantly. Those conversations will continue whether or not we choose to participate in them. But we cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what our Church teaches... We are living in a world saturated with all kinds of voices. Perhaps now, more than ever, we have a major responsibility as Latter-day Saints to define ourselves, instead of letting others define us.
There is a big difference between an honest mistake made in a moment of spiritual weakness and a willfull decision to disobey persistently the commandments of God. Those who deliberately choose to violate God's commandments or ignore the standards of the Church, even when promising themselves and others that someday they will be strong enough to repent, are stepping into a dangerously slippery slope upon which many have lost their spiritual footing.
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.
but it is also true, if this brings her any consolation, that if, before every action, we were to begin weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probably, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt.
Whenever you meditate, there are glimpses. Then the mind comes in and says, 'Be happy! Look, I have done it.' And immediately the contact is lost.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
Hath any wounded thee with injuries? Meet them with patience. Hasty words rankle the wound; soft language dresses it.
George MacDonald gives me renewed strength during times of trouble--times when I have seen people tempted to deny God--when he says, "The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like his.
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