Here I am about to state the obvious – my blog always comes out the day before Thanksgiving. This causes me to have mixed feelings – I want everyone to be focused on enjoying their day. There are times to be thinking about our habits, our organizing, our time management, and etcetera. Then there are times when it’s time to set that aside for a while – other priorities are more important.
One of the things I talk to people about is setting priorities. When everything holds the same value, everything can lose its value. Think about it in terms of stuff – if you are so surrounded by things you love, how can you love everything when you can’t see or find it? This applies just as much to our interests – if you want to do everything, you need to figure out what exactly you want to focus on first.
Even more importantly, you need to decide what can wait – when it’s time to set something aside – either permanently or just for the time being. This is part of what causes someone to feel overwhelmed – the feeling that there is just so much to be done and not being able to leave something undone.
All of life is a journey – like organizing – there’s not an end point. There’s always more to be done, more to organize, more to improve, and on and on infinitum. It’s part of what makes life so interesting. It’s also exactly this that frustrates our efforts.
My vision of this is walking down a road, coming to the familiar crossroads, and choosing a path. Sometimes this path is about setting something down for a while – I leave that thing, the interest or desire, by the side of the road – because it’s just an image, I know I can pick that interest back up again after I’ve traveled for a while.
Often the holidays are full of routines – we always get together with so and so on Thanksgiving. As with virtually everything I talk about – I encourage you to figure out your own needs and values – for Thanksgiving as with anything else. It can be challenging to align your priorities with your life, yet it’s important to do.
