Whats Important In Your Life?

You hear it so often – Life is a great adventure, full of complexity and a multitude of paths from which to choose. But it can sometime be overwhelming. 

I think a time comes to all of us when we wonder what life is all about. Something usually happens that triggers us to stop and just think. Perhaps a death of a loved one, an accident or a loss of job. Whatever the reason is, I know what that’s like. For me, I always feel something is missing from my life, not really understanding or knowing what is missing I shift my attention to my career and climbing up the corporate ladder. When I turned 30 recently, I forced myself to take a long hard look at my life. I decided to start seeing a therapist as I couldn’t answer a few basic questions I asked myself:

• What is my life?
• What have I been doing all this time?
• What should I do with my life?
• What am I so worried about?

I realised one thing..

It was time to think what was really important to me. And I realised that I could do that. Most importantly I could start living now. 

Many of us spend a large portion of our time and energy pursuing relatively unimportant things. The most common is the extent to which we try to be the best we can at our jobs – to climb the corporate ladder, to please our bosses, to work in the best side of town and of course to earn the big bucks. 

Most people would classify me as materialistic and career minded. My therapist once told me that by adopting a material mentality really means subordinating our own interests and values for somebody else’s. She didn’t imply that material mentality is wrong but is being material minded our own free choice and not what is expected of you?

Obviously we could be forgiven for thinking material things are really what are important. After all, we are surrounded by materialistic people everywhere and not so subtle advertising telling us how great this or that new product is. If only we had the bigger house with the pool, how much better our lives will be. 

Of course we all need the basic necessities – food and shelter but does the “extras” really matter that much?

I then asked myself - If everything material in our lives were stripped away, where would we be? We live in warmth and comfort and it’s important for us to consider what and where we’d be if we had none of it. Why? Well…to help us keep perspective I guess.

I guess what I’m trying to say is…

Material possessions don’t necessary bring happiness. It honestly took me about 25 years to figure that out.  The best things in life are really free- or reasonably priced.

We are all mortal beings; our existence in this form is finite. The only thing we can be 100% sure about is that we are all going to die. And at that time, our material achievements do not matter.

However, a life that only consists of basic necessities seems plain and dull. I believe we all need some pleasures and fulfilment in our lives. The challenge is to balance the pursuit of pleasures with genuine productivity. By rewarding ourselves with some material pleasures we strengthen our will to continue. 

My therapist suggested that I do an exercise everyday:

When I wake up in the morning, I should take a moment and ask myself what is really important. Then have the wisdom and courage to build my life around my answer.  

As we go through life, at some point we will become aware of what really matters. We could do without the big house with the pool and designer clothes (don’t get me wrong – those things are great too!) but what really makes our lives worth living?

Here’s my list of what’s really important in my life.

• Health - This is something we all take for granted until we are sick. Most of us push our bodies and expect them to keep performing and doing their thing no matter what we put them through. I get through life somewhat healthy but not feeling energetic or vibrant because I’m not feeding myself the most nourishing food or getting enough rest and time out from work. We shouldn’t take our health for granted, because enjoying every other part of our life hinges on it.

• A sound mind – My husband’s grandfather suffers from Alzheimer. I know it is difficult for him and his family to see how his grandfather is trapped in his body with a brain that could no longer remember his amazing life. If you can think clearly and remember the good times, then again…you are blessed.

• Love – Whether it’s your husband, family or friends, just knowing that someone loves you unconditionally just the way you are can make life worth living.

• Good friends – When life lets you down and something terrible happens, it is your circle of good friends that can lift you back up and make life feel more worthwhile. I am blessed to have a handful of really good friends whom I know I can count on no matter what. You know who you are peeps :P

Every day, every moment is precious and unique. What is done is done. What is gone is gone. We don’t have time for self-pity. If we feel things are wrong or could be made better, its then up to us to do something about it. Anger, bitterness and frustration simple waste our precious energy and time. We should take positive action to resolve our problems or improve our situations. 

Problems and worries are often given a greater importance than they merit. By applying perspective we make them the appropriate size in the bigger picture. We all have to learn that life is not, and never can be perfect. But by keeping its difficulties and imperfections in perspective we can then focus on those areas in which we can most be most productive. 

As we begin to turn our focus more towards the positive things in our lives, I think its only natural that we start thinking about our priorities. Most of us have a lot of balls in the air: work, family, friends, hobbies, personal goals, school, kids. Regardless, that’s a lot of balls to juggle. At some point, no matter how good we are – we will drop something.

I know, I know..we are all superhuman. I like to be delusional sometimes too and believe that I can handle anything and everything – no matter how much I may already have going on in my life.

But since we aren’t superhuman, it becomes increasingly more important that we figure out which balls we can afford to drop and which balls we can sacrifice when we must dive to stop the important balls from hitting the ground. 

Let’s all just take a moment to count our blessings and realise that we have so much to be thankful for. When we know and have what’s really important to us, material then simply just becomes icing.