Define Your Priorities

I believe one should be willing to look within and define his/her utmost priority in their current life. It is not a fixed priority that they live with for the rest of their life, but one that is important for them personally as of now.

Your priorities will change, but to identify the one you must have while standing on your two feet right now is what probably going to define the course of your life.

“Life is short. Focus on what really matters most; you should change your priorities over time.” ― Roy T. Bennett

Priorities are different for different people and could change constantly. For example, consider someone who is overweight and his life is in danger due to his excess weight. His priority would be to get his health under control by implementing better food habits and exercises; whereas for someone else it would be to find better sources of income, or to get out of a toxic living environment, etc.

But it does not matter what your priority is; what matters is the ability to define your current priority which I would call as the high-level priority [HLP] and to start implementing them effectively. Your HLP is your own, it’s only for you, you do not have to copy someone else’s priority because it sounds appealing. Someone else’s priority is HLP for them alone, not for you. For you, they are low-level priorities [LLP], or medium-level priorities [MLP], or something to be considered later. It is important that you do not mess up with your priorities and compromise for general opinions on twitter or wherever.

“They will envy you for your success, your wealth, for your intelligence, for your looks, for your status — but rarely for your wisdom.” ― Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You must be clear enough to see that engaging in a process to get richer is not a substitute to free yourself up from your mental suffering. Identify your priority and commit to that process. It does not mean you will not have other priorities later in life. You will, but only when you have effectively worked out your HLP which is your most demanding priority as of today.

The key is to build a system to commit to your own HLP. To learn how to form discipline to get your HLP under control. And keep going until you can step on to the next HLP. When you have successfully got through your initial HLP, you can use the momentum gained to go for the next HLP. You can use the emotional skills you gained through mastering your initial HLP for your next priorities in life.

Say, if you had been too low for a long time, maybe you suffer from addictions, unhealthy lifestyles, etc. Your immediate HLP is perhaps not to get richer or commit to an ultimate diet plan. But to focus on building up a normal lifestyle that will gradually lift you from the deep hole you are trapped in.

You can perhaps be gentle with other areas of your life which are MLP or LLP for you as of now. You do not have to compare yourself with someone else or his level of success. You must be willing to start from where you are and build momentum gradually whilst executing your current HLP.

If you have a lot of stress and fear in your body-mind, then taking up a priority like bulking up muscles can be a bit nonsense whereas engaging in some lighter forms of physical movements like ‘Tai Chi’ or ‘Yoga’ or ‘TRE’ or even finding time to meditate can be a possible priority at this point of your life. If you feel that simply just sitting for an hour and allowing your body to heal is going to be good for you in the long run, then that is your priority.

I am not saying you should not hit hard on the gym, instead, see its level of priority. It could fall under LLP or MLP depending on your life situation. And so you can be gentle on it, but at the same time serious with HLP.

You do not have to stop doing everything else just because you had defined your HLP. But instead, make sure that other activities that fall under LLP or MLP are currently just to aid you in the successful implementation of your HLP. They act like helpful tools for keeping you in the flow. They are to be used in a way to ease off some pressure, so to speak. So remind yourself to be gentle with them [LLP and MLP]. Once you had got the HLP under your belt, you can get more serious with other activities.

If you find it difficult to get quality sleep, define it as your HLP for the time being. And once it had been resolved, you will naturally be more productive and useful for other life challenges.

People who do not sort out their priorities and go with popular stuff like getting rich quick or something else; they might get rich and still feel miserable. It’s lazy thinking to think that pressurizing yourself and getting richer will be a replacement for learning patience, a little discipline, and the most importantly the ability to think for yourself and not through someone else’s head and life situation.

Sure you can add multiple priorities when you know that you are matured enough to handle it without foolishly stressing up; when you know how to clear-cut define what demands you to be gentle and what to be emphasized.

Personally for me, when I joined a new gym recently. It was a way for me to just be with people, a bit of socializing, etc along with forming a discipline around patiently building up my strength. I was not there to bulk up and waste my energy by mentally stressing too much on something which is an LLP for me at that time.

This is my status as of now, this LLP might become MLP at some time or even HLP or I could drop it sometime later. Got the point, right. For now, it acts as an aid for my defined HLP’s.

When you had been too low or unproductive for a long time and you realized that it’s not going to help. Then to start taking better actions will feel like swimming through mud. Even waking up in the morning and showing up can be hard. But then that is your priority. Forget the rest. Once you had mastered the emotional skills to go through and win in your current HLP action, then you are already good enough to take up next-level challenges when it comes.

For eg: If your current priority is learning to code. Once you had defined it as your priority and mastered it you can apply it later on to your next priorities like building projects, applying for jobs, etc.

In my personal life, someone used to always give unasked for advice to me regarding food and some other things. While I was more concerned with stabilizing my current lifestyle which I had been building up gradually. When he was always finding reasons to criticize me or comparing me with some famous people in the world, I felt so bad within. I was thinking why isn’t he even bothered to see things from other people’s perspectives and their situation in life rather than always loading his knowledge and ideas and his personal priorities onto my head.

One day I said to him to stop giving me unasked advice and let him be known that I have my own priorities and to please respect that. It was a relief for me.

In the above case, my challenge was to ask him in a polite manner to stop giving advice and respect my intelligence and priorities. I did not explode or get angry at him, as I was willing to talk to him about what I was truly feeling without modifying it to please him or escape the physical discomfort in conversing with him.

We think others know what is good for us just because they don’t suffer what we suffer. But that’s bullshit, only someone who had gone through our challenges directly can guide us.

One good practice when conversing with others is to listen to your body and if it feels like you are enduring it, then be okay with letting him be known that he is senselessly sucking up your energy — of course in a polite way. You do not want to make one into an enemy unless he exposes himself as a 100% enemy; sometimes it is only a matter of letting others know.

You don’t kill an enemy before they become the enemy. You only slash the enemy when they become a 100% good enemy and present a real 100% challenge. If someone is interested in making love with you, you make love to them. But you don’t rape them. You don’t kill an enemy before they become the enemy. — CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA RINPOCHE

Most people have fucked up priorities, they go for number 10 without dealing with number 1. And expect everything will get better. So you might as well take precautions to not fall for such a strategy.

“I do not understand people who will lustily throw $40,000 at the shiny red automobile of their choice, but well up with tears and become outraged when they are asked to pay $5 for a damaged videotape. Either they are fucked up and their priorities are fucked up or I am fucked up and my priorities are fucked up. Because I am me, I think it is them.” ― Don Borchert

Hope this piece has something good for you to take away personally.

Thanks for reading.