The Next 25

Today’s been a good day. I started with my morning scripture study, knocked out the tasks I needed to handle, and then gave myself a little time to unwind with some YouTube. I went for a walk around the city—I'm here on a layover for work—and I even got in a solid gym session. Overall, it’s felt like a really disciplined day. But if I’m honest, I’m worried it might all fall apart later. That’s been the pattern in the past: I start strong—doing the things I know I should —but by afternoon or evening, things unravel. I slip into doom scrolling on Instagram, eat garbage food, or stay up too late binging TV. I think what causes that is a kind of imbalance. I burn up all my willpower early in the day and don’t have much left to carry me through the rest of it. So the real question is—how do I avoid the crash? The good news is that I’m aware of it now, and that awareness gives me a chance to do things differently. I’m realizing that the key isn’t trying to keep up a perfect, iron-clad...

 25 years ago today, I returned from my service as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The end of my mission was a turning point in my life. It signified the end of an old life and the beginning of a new. It also signified the beginning of my adult life. A lot has happened in the last 25 years, most of it I never expected. As I sit here 25 years later, I can’t help but think back on everything that has happened but also reflect on what is to come. It’s as if I’m sitting in the middle of a 50-year time span, I look one way and I see the previous 25 years, the sum total of my adult life, and looking the other way, I see the 25 years ahead of me, from now until I am 71 years old. A lot has happened, and a lot is still to come. My goal with this blog is to visit the past and to chart the future. I’ve accomplished a lot in the last 25 years but there are still a lot of things I thought I would have accomplished at this point in my life that I have not. ...