Most people (including me most of the time) tend to think that defining your priorities means sitting down seriously with pen and paper (or perhaps a notebook computer) and outlining your life's priorities. That is a good exercise and useful to do from time to time. I recommend it in some of my leadership classes and workshops. It can be good to do a "time out" to define and re-define one's life priorities.
But our priorities in reality are manifested in what we do on a daily basis. Just a few examples. If we choose to linger over the newspaper and coffee in the morning before work instead of going ahead with our chores, that demonstrates a priority. If we choose to go to the gym or grocery shopping on Sunday morning instead of church that too demonstrates our priorities.
If a man chooses to go out with the guys instead of playing with his children, he is revealing his priorities. If a woman prefers "girls' night out" to playing with her children, she too is revealing our priorities.
Instead of sitting down and thoughtfully planning the "ideal" life priorities, it is a better, more realistic exercise to sit down and record how we actually live our days. Then we can look it over and ask: what can I change? What can I eliminate? What are my priorities? There are some givens: work, sleep, etc. Look at your life. Don't eliminate the basics but think about the other things in your life. What is essential? What is dispensable?
A key is simplifying our life. It can be done. Not overnight, but a little at a time, perhaps over years.
We can start now by examining our lives and then asking: what does my life say about me? What are my priorities? This is what I have chosen. Is this what I want? It is up to all of us to define our priorities by living them.
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