Live Boldly by Radmacher Mary Anne;

Author:Radmacher, Mary Anne; [9781609255053]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 1788193
Publisher: Red Wheel Weiser

Priorities

noun. 1. a thing that is regarded as more important than another. 2. the fact or condition of being regarded or treated as more important. 3. the right to take precedence or to proceed before others.

Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.

—Will Rogers

choose the whole of your environment, things and events, based upon the value, meaning, and function they hold. do not allow obligation or immediacy to bind you to physical things or specific actions.

—mar

It is a better thing to weigh and measure priorities in the illuminating light of your own mission than to have your activities formed by the impressions and expectations of others.

I've been privileged to be near several dear souls as they have prepared to enter the world of dying. There is so much to be learned about priorities in this time. There's an unattributed saying: “No one ever is heard to say on their deathbed, ‘I wish I had worked at the office more.’”

In the press of life's many tasks and obligations, one's priorities can become skewed. Years ago, as I was preparing to leave from my extended stay in Paris, I was under the impression that I would be coming back in a few months. Not so. I wrote later, “If I had known it was to be my last time in Paris, I would have lingered over my coffee a little longer.” We can choose, repeatedly, the laundry or dishes over the moment of play with a child. The walk outdoors may be set aside in favor of completing a marketing strategy, organizing a cupboard, or any number of other professional or domestic activities. When I choose to introduce the “live as if this is all there is” philosophy into my day, my choices become different.

This is not advocacy for hedonism. This is instead a plea for creating memories that are rich and full, and recognizing that at the end of our lives we may remember our friendships and sunny walking afternoons more than an elaborate report or well-organized closet. And those end-of-life memories don't just arrange themselves in a single day. Our daily decisions create the scrapbook of our life. I remember the sadness on the face of a grandmother I know who spent all afternoon cleaning her granddaughter's house, when all her granddaughter wanted to do was play with her grandma. A viewing of The Wizard of Oz will demonstrate that even Auntie Em was sad about the priority she chose of moving those chicks out of a broken incubator when Dorothy was nowhere to be found.

But setting priorities is tricky business. Because sometimes the chicks have to be moved. And in certain settings, the closet getting organized truly is the most significant thing. There's a koan that asserts, “The one who is too good at shooting does not hit the center of the target.” And conversely, Thoreau said that men basically hit what they aim at.

So I should be clear on what I am good at, and make sure it is aligned with my apparent priorities.

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