The Priority of Having Priorities

I have always strangely disliked the question of “what is your priority?” and in a similar vein the advice “make it a priority”. I’ve always felt that the idea of having priorities was more important than the things themselves. I felt like people spent more time talking about and deciding and planning priorities than actually prioritizing them. People will proudly state what their priorities are, but shouldn’t our priorities speak for themselves? Someone can say that their priority is family but what does that mean? How their family feels is what matters.

Society acts like priorities are this nice clear list. If I put family first and friends second and work third then I’m how I’m supposed to be. To me priorities are so much more fluid. My priority at 9am while I’m at work is different than my priority at 5:30pm. It’s ever changing and evolving and rarely a conscious thought.

I used to think it was important to spend a lot of time carefully contemplating my priorities. I think there is still value in reassessing priorities sometimes. I think now I’m at a point in my life that I’d rather just give something a try. I could spend the time thinking or doing. Let’s just do. Instead of making a performance of the decision. I want to live my life by what is right at the moment.

Maybe the issue isn’t prioritizing having priorities. The issue is prioritizing thinking about them instead of doing them.