At some point we all have our priorities and somehow organize our lives according to them. Maybe not realizing this straight away but those priorities really shape us and how we arrange our daily life and, really important, our future. What are the values we want to keep and pass on? How important is this or that? And is this really necessary? But this is all a little more complex, as I have experienced lately.
I guess the least of us know their priorities straight away. When someone would come up to me and ask for my priorities I would certainly have to think for a while. For a long time I thought I knew what my priorities are, since I’m always really organized when it comes to life and schedules. But I guess life events, people and certain circumstances change those preferences and you start to over-think your way of living.
My first, vast major life course was when my father died in 2012 (find an article on that here). So much changed in an instant second and somehow you think your life slips through your fingers. This is when I realized how short our lives are and how precious it is what we have. We have to be honest: we can’t always live our lives to the maximum and have great days everyday. And thats normal. We are normal. We are no freaking machines that work 24/7 and pull a happy face all the time. Humans are not made to be like that! But way to often we don’t or don’t want to realize that. But, guess what, we have to deal with it.
Dealing with life can be pretty hard and devastating from time to time. Which is why many people sometimes try to ignore it but don’t realize that this makes it even worse. In German you say “etwas aussitzen” (something like “to sit sth. out”). But I’m not sure if this has gotten many people that far. To sit something out often means that you don’t talk about the problem or what ever it is you have to wait upon. This often makes people more impatient and bitter. And that certainly is never a good situation for discussing things.
I looked up “priorities” on Pinterest since I’m a fan of good quotes. And running through these pictures really made me think. For example one quote said: “Instead of saying ‘I don’t have time’ try saying ‘it’s not a priority,’ and see how that feels.” (Laura Vanderkam). I think this conveys a lot and it’s true, even if we don’t want to realize it. We try to schedule our days according to or preferences. Of course this isn’t always possible since there are certain appointments we have to make such as visiting your dentist. But this also means we want healthy teeth, which makes this appointment also a priority to us. I just start to think of all my appointments and somehow I always find a matching preference why I will write this into my planer and go there.
Therefore I think our schedules list us pretty much how our priorities look like. Going to the hairdresser, meeting friends, do a shopping trip with your Mum, have dinner with a crush, workout at the gym and let our moles be checked at the dermatologist. And then this sentence comes to my mind: “Nobody is too busy, its just a matter of priorities”. The moment we make our appointments in the calendar we set our priorities.
But I wanted to keep the focus of this post upon what happens when we change our priorities and why we sometimes do that. I guess the most common things are life changing events such as marriage, a newborn, getting a job or loosing someone in your life. But also new people popping into your life change they way we think. I always thought work and training my body to the maximum would be first on my list. They were for a long time because I felt safe and secure training in studios. And its certainly still very high on my list but since a year and a half I have realized that there is more to life. More to experience and more to do.
I guess loosing my Dad just changed everything more than I have realized. I thought I got through this time pretty well but honestly: I think I went into a nutshell and stayed there for quite some time. For example, I have always been a sports enthusiast. And yes I had to go for one type since time wouldn’t have allowed any other hobby besides dancing. I’ve set my priority. But lately I also got back to other sports such as swimming, Yoga and strength training (also on my list: Stand-Up Paddling) . Of course to somehow make me a stronger dancer but also to give my body and my mind a change. Sometimes we got to look beyond in order to blossom, develop and cherish the life we have.
And yes, humans are clever constructions. At the age of 18/19 I never thought about having children. Now, at 24, I definitely would love to become a Mum someday. Not in the next months and years but motherly feelings do come through from time to time. And I guess in most cases this is something really normal. At young, teenage ages we don’t think about things like that because other things are important to us. But somehow we have been created to rethink and to actually set our priorities according to our age and the life statues we live in.
So, after all this, how can we work out our priorities? I wish, at the end of this entry, I could give you a straight forward answer to the question but I can’t because I’m still not sure if I have found all my priorities yet. And I’m not sure how to set them myself. But life has shown me that something like a healthy life and healthy newborns is truly something to wish upon.
