Are You Mistaken About Your Priorities?

Jay Hind

If you aren’t spending much time on family or spiritual life or

health maintenance, for example, then maybe these aren’t really

the most important things in your life.

Could you be wrong about your own priorities? Well, sure. In

the incredibly complex interactions of conscious mind, subcon-

scious motive, and psyche, we’re perfectly capable of masking our

true motivations from ourselves even as we might seek to hide

them from or misrepresent them to others.

Also, the process of writing a list of priorities is different from

the process of living your life. Your list could reflect the things you

think of when asked to make a list, just as the opinion you give to

a pollster might represent the opinion you would have if you had

an opinion.

You might have listed the elements you think you’re supposed

to list, the elements it’s acceptable or right to value most highly.

You really wanted to list “making a pot of money” as your num-

ber-one priority, but somehow you just didn’t feel right doing so.

You knew that “family” was the “right” answer.

It’s possible that you misrepresented your priorities—on a list

that only you will see, in a book designed solely to help you make

decisions about how you spend your time. It’s possible—but it isn’t

very likely.

If you’d like to go back now and change your list to accurately

reflect your values, that’s ok. It’s your list. But I suspect you got it

right the first time.

Which brings us to the third possible explanation, that you

aren’t putting your time where your heart is.

𝓙ＭṼ