One evening, a mother was talking with her daughter about her grades. The problem was not what you might expect—the girl’s grades were perfect. She had never gotten a B in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. But her parents were concerned about her nevertheless.
“Are you asking me to not study?” the girl asked incredulously.
“No, honey,” her mother said. “We love how industrious you are, and we admire your intelligence. But we are afraid that you might be working so hard for the wrong reasons.”
“What do you mean, the wrong reasons? You enrolled me in the school. Isn’t this what I am supposed to be doing? Isn’t this the point?”
“Actually, darling, it is only one of the points.”
“What are the others?”
“The one I am talking about right now is this: we do want you to do your job, and study, and learn. But we don’t want your identity to get wrapped up in it. We want you to do it for the right reasons—because you love what you are studying. This is quite different from loving that red one hundred percent at the top of the test.”
“Mom, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“I know, honey.” With that the two just sat there for a few moments. Then the mother spoke again.
“If you were to die right this minute, and the angel taking you up to heaven said you could bring just one thing with you—not a person—what would you take? Now I don’t want the catechism answer, or the Sunday school answer. Because in those answers you don’t take anything with you, and I know that you memorized the catechism. Perfectly.”
At this, the daughter looked a little sheepish, because she knew what she would take, and she knew what her mother would say about it. And she started to see the point.
She looked across the room. “My report cards,” she said.
“Is that because you think that the people in heaven really wanted to see them?”
“No,” the girl said at length. After a minute, the two started laughing together. “But they should have wanted to,” said the daughter.