Priorities

Priorities.

Every so often, you have to stop and take inventory.

Mine would happen between travel assignments. At the end of an assignment, I had to clean out the place I was staying and throw out the clutter, and decide exactly what I needed for where I was going. What could I not do without, and what could get tossed. Could I take my bike? Must I have this piece of equipment? On and on the list was trimmed, and I learned more than just what I could live with, but what you couldn't live without. And this happened EVERY time I switched assignments. Colorado, Alaska, Arizona, California, Vermont.

Now that doesn't only work with clutter, or home items. It has to do with emotions, and ambitions, and duties, and values. What ambitions am I just holding onto because of pride and preference, or vindictiveness or pain? What values do I have that really make a difference. And you choose what you value.

And it comes down to that all important question: what's important?

We can give trite answers, but it's the time alone, when no one is looking and the people who have the most influence on your decisions are gone or away or no longer count in your life that you get to take a deep breath and sigh. And look at that list again, and even educate that list. What values can't I live without, and what inconveniences can I live with?

So what prompted this, since I'm done with my current assignment? I'm cleaning out my apartment, my brother's coming over to visit (from California).