Yesterday in my design class we discussed how to gather details from users. The professor mentioned that surveys and plain Q&A interviews mask the details we need because people tend to answer "how they think they should answer." For a different class's seemingly unrelated reading assigment I studied Focus and Priorities by Elder Oaks. These two events provoked the internal question: "What really are my priorities?" I would normally regurgitate the expected "God, family, church, school" but at this moment it wouldn't be true. I would have to earnestly look over how I spent my time to find my actual priorities. Perusing the moments of yesterday reveal a disappointing answer: school, school, work, school, God, more school, and food. I feel imbalanced.
I find myself thinking about this often. Are my professed priorities really my priorities? Luckily, priorities are not static. When I want to prioritize something and I act on that desire, it is my priority. Unfortunately, priorities are not static. When I forget about something and neglect it, it's not my priority. Every today is an opportunity to get my priorities right... and so is tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI think it is helpful to keep the big picture in perspective. Why is school your number one priority right now? Probably so that you can get a good job to support your family. Doing so also enlarges your mind, enabling you to better serve God/others in your church responsibilities. Sure, school dominates your life right now, but it won't forever.
ReplyDeleteI think that what you mentioned about the fact that our allocation of time to various activities reflects priorities is a good springboard for thought. I imagined that if each day we saw an automatically generated graph indicating the amount of actual time that we allocated to each category of activity, it would often be striking, and it would probably motivate us to change certain things.
ReplyDeleteAs has been mentioned, it's also important to realize that time is not the only indicator of priority; each day we may allocate more time to school (to the tune of eight or more hours per day) than to gospel study, but that doesn't necessarily mean that school is a higher priority than the gospel for us. Indeed, the ideal situation is that school is one step in a larger, more important goal outlined by the gospel.