Getting Very, Very Clear … About What Is Very, Very Important (and What Really Isn’t) —
We live in a world where everything is coming at us so fast and from so many angles, where the people around us are all demanding so many different things from us, and where there’s just so much COOL STUFF out there blaring for our attention. But you can’t do it all. And you shouldn’t want to … . . .
A Video Post, by Sebastian Michaels
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Transcript continued:
This is one of those quotations I reflect upon often:
“It is only by focusing on what is genuinely important to us — the few people, relationships, activities, and causes that we really care about — that we become centered, authentic, powerful, loving, and loved. There is no other way.”
– Richard Koch
Here’s another use to which you can put your journal. At least once a month sit down somewhere quiet and make a list of all the things vying for your attention and your time. Some of it will be clearly trivial or obvious distractions; but a lot of it will be stuff you really are interested in (at least right now). Just make a list.
Then I want you to go through that list and cross out anything that doesn’t immediately sound off a great chime of delight in you. As someone wise once put it: “If it’s not a ‘Hell, yeah!’ then it’s a ‘Nope.’
You’ll end up crossing off a lot of stuff you kinda think could be interesting or sort of think might be fun, but if it’s not reverberating in you in some important way, cross it out for now.
With your list pared down, now go through what’s left and circle ONLY those things that are GENUINELY important to you: Those items or activities or relationships that promise great JOY … and the sense that if you spent your life there, with those, it would be a life WORTH living.
What I think you will find is that what you now find circled on your list seems … so obvious.
It’s what you probably knew all along.
And all those other possibilities and distractions you crossed out now feel like so much clutter. And having crossed them off the list, they’re now a weight off your shoulders. Life is short. The things you can pursue with passion and dedication are limited in number. The people who REALLY matter to you are few.
In this age of distraction, opt instead for clarity and focus.
Reach deep and grab from life what is authentically important to you — and make THAT your life.
For those of us who would craft meaningful, creative, artistic lives for ourselves and those we love, there really is no other way to live.
– Sebastian