What are your idle thoughts.......

Today was "Business Summitt" at BYU-Idaho. It is an opportunity for students to have a legitimate reason to skip school all together, because most classes are cancelled to provide an opportunity to attend the guest speakers presentations. However, being in Senior Capstone for Economics, I was required to attend at least two of the break out sessions with our speakers. I would have preferred to have gone to Jon Huntsman Sr. presentation at 2:00 pm, but I was going to be working then. So, I went to a presentation made by a famous LDS author and investigative journalist. He spoke about himself.....a lot....but he made a comment that struck me.

"What do you think about when you have idle thoughts?".......... I don't usually have time for idle thoughts. My mind is constantly moving. I am worrying about what I have to do for school, about what I need to get done for my calling, about the situations of my friends, the cattle prices in Montana, my grandmother's health, my LSAT, my work schedule, my savings, if I am ever going to find who I am suppose to marry....the list goes on and on.....and so at first this comment made me laugh. "I am far too busy to have idle thoughts....." Then I realized that was not true. I remember the moments when I just sit, and stare....when my mind reboots and I can just think quietly and for a moment my life is my own and not an instrument being used for others. Other times include when I withdraw completely and just type and do Montana statistics. What do I think about when I have idle thoughts......two things really. I think about Montana and the growth in its cities. I think about the beauty of my state and how much I love it, how close I feel to it. The second thought, it always my ranch. With both those ideas in my mind I re-entered the world where the speaker went on to make his point. What you think about when you have idle thoughts is an indicator of how successful you will be in your career.

I was shocked......I always HOPED, I would be successful at law. I know I don't have the greatest love for it, but I do have a gift, at least that is what I have been told, for arguing and for presenting my case. Yet, this man told me my thoughts betrayed the level of my success. How can I make my thoughts part of my occupation?

I have never wanted to be a rancher, I still do not. I see what my father does, and although I would love the down time in winters, when you aren't feeding cattle or doctoring them, I could not handle the constant pressures of manual labor every day. I love the outdoors, and I would love the time to read, and to constantly to be finding ways to maximize profits, but I could not be my father. I don't have the mechanical skills or any other number of prerequisites needed to run our operation. Yet my mind constantly falls back to the fields of my home. I feel so connected to them. My father told me, "one day you will feel the land is your flesh and the water is like your blood." I remember him telling me this as we walked the fields irrigating by hand. I thought he was foolish, and I was only 8, but now that I am older I would not assume to have his affinity for the land, but I feel it deep within. I love those fields, the memories they hold bind the physical attributes of the land to me like a covenant. I cannot be parted from it, and for this reason I will never sell my ranch, and if there was more land and greater ability to merely financially run the ranch, and hire a foreman for the manual labor and everyday control, I would be eagerly looking forward to returning. I cannot return.....and so I am on a train to "somewhere" and my heart will forever be left behind in Montana and my ranch.