Choice & Priorities

Day in and day out we make choices in our lives. Some are easy, inconsequential choices while others are more difficult and of greater importance. Not every choice or decision produces the intended results nor is a win-win. Sometimes we can do better but sometimes we are doing the best that we can under the circumstances. When things aren’t perfect it’s so very easy to hone in on the imperfections and beat ourselves up over them – over what we did or didn’t do that contributed to a less than perfect outcome. Our choices, most of the time, are not made in a vacuum. It’s not so easy to discern why we make some of the choices we make - even when the choice is a simple one. When the waiter asks me “Do you want fries with that or broccoli?” and I respond with “broccoli” one might assume that I have made that choice for health purposes. That’s one possibility but might it also be that I don’t like fries? (Yes, hard to believe but it’s true, some people do not like french fries.) I might be on a diet. I might love broccoli. I might have had fries for lunch so I’m not in the mood. There is a reason I chose the broccoli. And there are reasons behind why people make every choice they make – most are much more complex in nature than the reasoning behind selecting one’s side order at a restaurant.

No, the broccoli/fries choice is not complex. But something does drive that choice just like something drives every choice we make. What are those things? Well, I think they can be summed up in one word – priorities. Too vague? Well, let me expand on that by listing what some of my priorities are, generally speaking.

§ The Health & Well-Being of People I Care About

§ Quality of Life

§ Continuous Learning/Personal Growth

§ My Own Health & Well-Being

§ Happiness

This is an incomplete list. It would go on for pages if I became specific about what need or want falls where but that sort of detail is not required – simply put, our priorities drive our decisions. And now I shall elaborate.

Since being healthy is one of my priorities (falling under the category of My Own Health & Well-Being), I might choose broccoli over the fries or take the stairs rather than the elevator or walk on the treadmill when I’ve got an extra hour as opposed to watch TV. These are not tough choices. Okay – choosing broccoli over fries is sometimes tough but not “tough” like other choices might be. Sometimes the choices we make impact others – and those are the toughest ones if you ask me.

If you are a parent you know what it is like to wrestle with choices we make for our children. You know that saying just one word – “ yes” or “no” – could be immensely consequential in a given situation. We parents make those decisions with much consideration and trial and tribulation. Since the health and well-being of my children is a priority for me I choose carefully when I am choosing on their behalf and when I make decisions for myself that I know may impact them in some way. Certainly, when my children are watching me, when they can actually see what I am doing, I try to model what I think is a good example. Thankfully our children aren’t always watching for we parents are not perfect. And that’s okay – I mean, not everything under the sun is okay but it’s okay to be human. All of us humans veer off course at one time or another. When this happens sometimes we discover that we were on the wrong course to begin with or are on a course we no longer want to be on and sometimes that veering is just an affirmation that we were doing things right all along and we need to get back on track.

Quality of life. What does that mean? It means different things to different people. I stopped working full-time after my daughter was born because I felt overwhelmed trying to juggle the job I had and the two children we were rearing. I wasn’t happy (kind of the overriding priority for me). Quitting work was not an easy decision. It cut our household income in half. No, I did not want to give up the income. But I did not want to keep working in that job either. I couldn’t have it both ways. I had varied options for improving my quality of life – all of them, however, involved putting what I believed to be the best interests of my children before my work interests and income desires. It was not an easy decision and one that was very measured and thought-out over the course of many months. It was not a simple equation but after considering all of my priorities I made the best decision I thought I could make. There was no ideal, no perfect solution and when there isn’t you can only do your best and hope for the best. Some days I really miss the full-time work world but I still believe I made the right choice overall even if sometimes I feel a tinge of sadness or regret over giving it up.

Continuous learning is important to me. That doesn’t mean I need to take college classes all the time or spend every free moment attending a lecture or reading a book or visiting a museum. Sometimes I enjoy those things but I also learn from so many places and from so many people. I listen. I pay attention. I notice. Through just these means I learn a tremendous amount. My need for continuous learning means I prioritize things like travel. Travel is a priority for me because I feel so much can be learned from visiting other places – from experiencing life in a big city or a sparsely populated island to exploring a different landscape and climate or a place where a different language is spoken and culture is practiced. Travel is also good for my well-being and that of my children so I will lobby for spending extra money on travel versus, say, a new flat screen TV if those were the choices. Getting away is rejuvenating, it helps you reconnect with your kids in ways you wouldn’t at home and it provides you with the opportunity to see and appreciate other ways of life. Travel is just one priority that fits in with my desire to continuously learn and to tend to my well-being. And when there is something we want and believe we can achieve, it is a good pursuit. We can’t always have everything we want but when we can I’m a big advocate for going after it.

Happiness. That’s a huge – if not the most important – driver of my choices. What makes me happy? What makes people I care about happy? What makes people for whom I am working or providing a service happy? Of course, conflicts abound as you begin asking more questions. What might make me happy may not make someone else happy. What to do then? Compromise? That can work sometimes. There are times when we can find middle ground easily. When choosing a restaurant we often pick one that has wide-ranging options so that if one person wants pasta and another wants a burger they can both be satisfied. That sort of win-win isn’t always so transparent or achievable. In general I believe that one person’s happiness should not be realized completely at the expense of the happiness of another. That’s not to say that I think I should accept a state of unhappiness just to spare another’s feelings. There may be someplace in the middle that offers a measure of happiness to all parties involved but sometimes, I guess, one person has to be unhappy for another to be happy – maybe we can’t always avoid the win-lose. But in general I try to find a way to be happy and to do no harm – or as little as possible – in the process. This might involve creativity, cooperation and/or the willingness of the involved parties to agree to less than ideal terms. For me, I believe the pursuit of happiness is the most worthy pursuit we can embark upon.

If we could make decisions thinking only of ourselves or not thinking of ourselves at all it would be so easy to choose all the time. It would be very black and white. This is what I want, this is my priority – done. Or this is what you want, it’s your priority – I hate it but forget me – done . But there are so many interdependencies in life, so many things that are woven together or connected in some way. The falling of one decision domino rarely happens – that domino usually hits another and sometimes many others. We can second guess ourselves all day long when we’ve made a choice that isn’t best for all involved or that could end up having a greater consequence than we ever intended. But isn’t it better accept that sometimes all the stars are not going to align exactly how we’d like and to remind ourselves that we are just trying to do the best we can? I believe that is what most of us are doing. We are trying to tend to our priorities as well as those of plenty of other people whose lives we touch; we are trying to achieve the greatest happiness we can while minimizing the unhappiness of another or any negative impact that our pursuit of happiness may cause. We cannot be all things to all people no matter how much we want to be. When we attempt to do that we usually forget about our own wants, needs and priorities. And that just results in our being unhappy, unfulfilled and upset. It’s good and noble to think of others but not exclusively at the expense of oneself. We have to take care of ourselves too.

You know, I’m not sure why we are all here but if it’s not to be happy, well, then, I guess I’ve got it all wrong. But please, don’t anyone enlighten me. I’m good with believing that being happy is what it’s all about. –AMB