Choir Notes

The Purpose of Life

From Music and the Spoken Word

Delivered By: Lloyd D. Newell • Program 4322

The purpose of life is to learn and grow and become better. Surely, heaven will be filled not with those who never made mistakes but with those who recognized they were straying and made corrections to get back on course. And we have opportunities to do that throughout life.1

Think how much better life could be if this were our attitude—to learn from setbacks and mistakes rather than being defined or paralyzed by them. Anyone who has ever been lost or confused knows how absolutely vital it is to occasionally reassess the direction of our lives.

One writer compares the matter-of-fact tone of a GPS, a satellite-based navigation system, to the ideal attitude toward accepting course corrections in life. "Here’s what I really love about the GPS,” she says. "When you miss the turn, it doesn’t fall apart. It just calmly says, ‘Recalculating,’ and tells you how to fix your mistake.” And then she laments: "I wish I could be as gentle and objective about my life mistakes as the GPS is about my driving ones. How marvelous it would be to be able to see things objectively and say to myself, ‘Well, you missed that turn, but we can still get you there.’”2

We all need to recalculate from time to time. It might be a change of plans or goals, an adjustment in our expectations and outlook, a fine-tuning of our attitude and character. In all these course corrections and recalculations, let us be patient and gentle and a little objective with ourselves. 

Remember, we are here to learn and grow and become better—and that takes time. Once we come to see mistakes as building blocks for a better life rather than stumbling blocks that keep us down, we truly begin to understand the purpose of life.

1 See Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "A Matter of a Few Degrees,” Ensign, May 2008, 60. 
2 Emily Watts, "Life Is Too Short: You Have Reached Your Destination,” LDS Living, Jan.–Feb. 2012.