Priorities

I’ve often thought that having priorities is just a natural part of life, like oxygen. In order to live a fulfilled life, one assigns priorities to the parts of our lives, and in doing so we live our best life.

Right? I mean, that HAS to be true, right?

But – what if it’s NOT true. Here’s what I heard today that made me think this over. What IF you look at each thing in your life with equal importance, or no more or less important than something else?

I literally have to stop and let that soak in and simmer a bit…because that “strategy” seems totally foreign to me. But, there IS some logic to it. A lot of people (myself included) assign a “when this big thing is over” deadline to our happiness/self care/vacation/etc. So, for example, I might say “when this event is finished at work I’ll get my desk organized”. That statement, whether mental or verbal, assigns a level of higher importance to the event than to getting the desk organized. And that MAY be a valid assignment of importance, but it puts pressure on the higher importance item (the event) and makes the other item less important. Another thought might be that in getting the desk organized I will be more efficient in my work for the upcoming event. Hmm…so really, is it possible that BOTH items are important?

By removing the “level of importance” for any one thing, you’re saying all things are equal and you’re living in the moment. Hmm…living in the moment, eh? THAT seems like a good way to “live your best life”.

I’ll be honest – when Dad’s health was declining, there were a lot of times that I “back-burnered” something because the time with him was of higher priority. And I KNOW that mentally I was thinking something along the lines of “when I’m not caring for him I’ll catch up on this, take care of that, focus my attention here, etc”. Essentially I was trading time – and planning for what I’d focus on after he passed away. I don’t regret any single instance of giving up time on something to spend with him. But – now that he’s gone I can tell you that those things that I avoided are still being avoided.

I’m SO BAD about this – the “when X is done, I’ll have time for Y”. Every time X is done though, something else comes along and Y gets pushed back. I think I’ve been pushing a lot of Ys back, and now maybe it’s time to change my thinking…maybe this “everything is equal” strategy has some merit.

Each day focus on what you’re doing and do those things. Did your plans to finish a project get interrupted by a friend who wanted to meet for lunch? No worries – that project will be there after lunch. I think for me to shift my thinking I’ll have to do it slowly and methodically. I’ll need to make a list of things I really need to get done at some point in the week, and then do those when I can. I’ll quit seeing the constant interruptions and redirections of my time as inconvenience and deal with them as they come.

Deal with things as they come – nothing is more or less important. Spend your time where it’s needed. Live in the moment. How about you? Do you prioritize or take things as they come? Is it even possible to live in the moment? Time will tell…I honestly don’t know if I have the ability, but I’ll try.