This week I kept thinking about Gordon B. Hinckley’s words about doing “a little better than we have been doing.” Maybe it stayed with me because I have been editing so much in COMM 310 lately. A sentence can look finished until I read it again and notice one word that does not belong there. Sometimes the problem is small. Sometimes I realize I need to rewrite almost everything.
I think there is something similar in the way I understand living the gospel.
Editing does not always mean that the first version was completely bad. Most of the time, I am keeping what works and correcting what does not. I can see the same thing in my own behavior. There are things I already do well, and there are other things I notice late. Maybe I spoke too quickly. Maybe I could have been more patient with someone. Sometimes I only understand it after the moment has passed.
That part feels familiar to me because it happens when I write too. I can read the same paragraph several times and suddenly notice the problem on the fourth reading. It was there from the beginning. I just did not see it yet.
I am not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so I sometimes approach these course prompts from the position of someone who is still learning the language and teachings behind them. But the idea of regularly looking at my life, correcting what needs correction, and trying again makes sense to me.
There is also something useful about not treating every mistake like the end of the story. When I edit an article, I do not throw away the whole document because one paragraph is weak. I go back to it.
I think that is probably the part of the comparison that stayed with me most this week.
One sentence. One reaction. One decision I would handle differently next time.
Improvement can be very ordinary.
And then I keep going.
