Jesus warned us to be aware of wolves in sheep's clothing.  We should watch out for things or people that don’t appear to be harmful but in the end can lead us to destruction.  

One of these wolves is the idea that finding our true selves and learning to be the best that we can be is the ideal goal of life.

Elder Bruce Hafen said that excessive individualism is hurting marriages today.   He said: “The adversary has long cultivated this overemphasis on personal autonomy, and now he feverishly exploits it. Our deepest God-given instinct is to run to the arms of those who need us and sustain us. But he drives us away from each other today with wedges of distrust and suspicion. He exaggerates the need for having space, getting out, and being left alone. Some people believe him—and then they wonder why they feel left alone.”

The  American concepts of the self made man (a phrase coined by Senator Henry Clay in the 1830s) or self reliance (a philosophy promoted by American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson) have created a culture that is really posed to help us focus only on ourselves and what will make us happy.  We are responsible for our own futures and our own decisions, but when we hyper focus on our own well being we loose some of our inate nature.

Salvation is an individual matter.  The scriptures are full of verses telling us that we are responsible for ourselves and our actions.   We cannot blame others for our mistakes. Along with the gift of agency came the gift of consequences.  We must own the choices and the consequences.

While salvation is a personal matter, exaltation is a family matter.  That means that in order to receive all that the Father has to give his children we must try and serve others.  We must open our hearts and be vulnerable. We must repent and forgive. And we must also utilize the other 7 principles of success families pointed out in the Proclamation:   faith, prayer, respect, love, compassion, work, and wholesome recreational activities.

As we work together as families, rather than a group of individuals, we will see that our truest personal fulfillment comes when we include those we love and our Heavenly Father in our search for that fulfillment.  We find our own personal happiness when we stop looking just for our own happiness. We find personal happiness when we search for group happiness.