5. General Conference, Elder Cook on Rationalizing Our Dreams Away

This past weekend, we were blessed with the chance to hear from many apostles and prophets  of God in the October Conference of 2014. While many people love to listen to the messages given in conference, few take the time to analyze why these talks are so effective. But when one looks a little deeper into the General Conference addresses, they can see many tools of persuasion. In Elder Quentin L. Cook's talk 'Choose Wisely', Elder Cook uses analogies and reasoning to show the dangers of rationalization, especially in regards to our church responsibilities.

Elder Cook shared one of his favorite comic strips to introduce his topic of rationalization, and share why this mindset is such a problem. In the comic strip, Lucy misses a fly ball in baseball, and while her team is mad about her missing it, she says "How do you expect me to catch the ball when I am worried about our country's foreign policy?" Elder Cook uses this analogy to show how sometimes in life, we link together excuses to avoid criticism or responsibility. He uses the comic strip to show how silly our rationalizations really seem. These rationalizations are dangerous because they try to take away our accountability. Elder Cook then goes on to explain how some people try to rationalize their decisions to not serve a mission, get married in the temple, or fulfill their church callings.

One of the big things that Elder Cook warned against was setting goals, but not putting the effort into our daily life to accomplish those goals. He explained how these people are rationalizing their day to day routines as to see no issues with their habits. These people get to the point where its time to accomplish their goal, but are not ready to do so because of their lack of real preparation. Elder Cook uses this example after the silly comic strip in order to show that our rationalizations are just as silly as Lucy's, but can have far more severe consequences.