Priorities In Life

The fire alarm went off at work yesterday. In about a minute or two the building was evacuated. While we were assembled at a street corner, everyone seemed cheery. Not a single person was talking about work or appeared stressed from work. I had never seen so many happy and relaxed faces at work.

That’s the thing. When our life is endangered, what was important a minute ago is not important now. No one cares about files, customers or deadlines. It takes a small incident like this to remind people that, in the grand scheme of things what we do in our daily lives doesn’t really matter that much.

We all have priorities in life, be it to complete a course, to get married, to have a baby, to get a promotion, to buy a house, to lose 20 kilos, to have a holiday. I am sure that if our house is burning down or a big earthquake is striking, none of these priorities would matter to us.

While it is necessary for us to have goals and priorities in life, it is important to keep in mind that apart from the temporary priorities we set for ourselves, there are permanent priorities as well. I have at least two permanent priorities if you are interested to know.

My first permanent priority is my physical health. Without physical health, I know that I can’t enjoy all the good things in life, neither can I look after the people I love. If you have visited a hospital or a rest home, you will see plenty of people who are full of kind hearts but live a dependant life.

My second permanent priority is my connection to the world at a soul level. Without this connection, say if disaster strikes and I go to another world, I wouldn’t have many friends. In the soul world our only connection with others is through soul. It certainly helps if we have already familiarised ourselves with other souls during this earthly life. I am not saying that we must become a medium, a physic or a guru to be able to see the dead or the God. I am talking about making soul connections to all the living things, as all the living things have a soul. The sun, the moon, a plant, a drop from the ocean, an animal, and certainly a fellow human being…. they all have a soul.

If we know what’s temporarily good for us and what’s permanently good for us both, we’ll use our time wisely. For example, if it’s temporarily good for us and permanently good for us, we’ll go for it (like exercises, meditation); if it’s temporarily bad for us and permanently bad for us (like throw a tantrum), we won’t bother if we have common sense; if it’s temporarily good but permanently bad (like drugs and alcohol), with self-discipline and strong will, we won’t do it; if it’s temporarily bad but permanently good (like remove an infected limb), we’ll certainly do it.

You see, if we have sorted our priorities list, life can be very simple to live! If we develop the habit of thinking in terms of temporary and permanent priority, there won’t be much to regret later on in our lives.