Choir Notes

Keep Improving
From Music and the Spoken Word
Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4242

Not long ago, a middle-aged woman walked the halls of her old high school. How different and small it seemed now. Memories happy and sad flooded back as she considered the brief moment that those high school years were. Along with some nostalgia, she felt a little regret. She imagined how she might do things differently if she could go back. She wished she would have reached out more to others, been friendlier, more aware of others’ needs.

But she knew she could not relive her high school days. So instead she determined to do more now—and each day ahead. She resolved to include others, be a true friend, reach out in love and kindness, and continue to learn, improve, and grow. She decided that her future would be different because of what she had learned in her past.

She had come to understand a truth that applies to all of us—failure, like success, is never final. As Richard L. Evans said on this broadcast more than 50 years ago: "The moment we close the books on one year we open them on another. . . . And no matter how good [or bad] last year was, there is this year now to consider. We have to keep at it, for life is a process, and not a finished product, and there is no moment at which we can say that the picture is completed.”1

We all have successes in our past, just as we remember things we wish we had done a little better. But we need not become discouraged about our past mistakes any more than we should become too comfortable with our past accomplishments. Many mistakes can be corrected, just as many successes can be improved. As long as we keep moving forward and keep doing our best, no success or failure is final.

1 The Everlasting Things (1957), 113.