Important vs Urgent
Mar 31We make decisions everyday. Some conjecture that we make hundreds of them. But really who knows because who really has the desire to count every single thing that we consciously decide upon. There are little choices like how many squares of toilet paper to use and there are big ones like what university to attend. Besides being categorized as big or small, we can also characterize its importance and its urgency.
On initial glance, it would not seem that importance and urgency are as diametrically opposed as big and small. However in daily living, decisions that are strong in one aspect seem to butt up against other decisions that are strong in the other aspect. The question that we should (but do not often enough) ask of ourselves is whether we are making choices that we are comfortable with. It is easy to answer choices on paper, but actual actions indicate our actual choices.
I doubt that there are many of us who would say that answering a phone call about work is more important than continuing a discussion with a friend. Nor would anyone say that clean dishes are more important than spending quality time with a child. But when we step back and evaluate it, it sure does seem like we make some decisions that we regret, doesn’t it?
Maybe it is time to let the house get a little bit dirty, let voicemail fulfill its intended purpose, be cured of our iPhone ADD, and put work away. Then it just might be easier to look back and be comfortable with what we have decided to do with our lives.