Meditations on God

If everything is important, nothing is important.

When we combine the needs and wants of others with the things that we need or want to get done for ourselves, we quickly begin to realize that there is not enough time to accomplish everything or to satisfy every demand.

One of the easiest ways to guarantee that we constantly spin our wheels, without really getting much done or making much progress, is to fail to prioritize what is truly important over what is just noise.

If every demand on our time is given equal importance and equal priority, we will find that we get very little done and we will be left feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, ineffective, and, oftentimes, resentful.

There is no possible way to be effective in our lives without evaluating and prioritizing the needs and wants on our time and attention, but this is our responsibility alone.

No one else is going to manage this for us in a way that is truly in our best interest.

The caveat, and often the most difficult part of prioritizing our tasks and to-do list, is that this will require us to learn how to say “No” in a variety of ways to a number of people, but this is necessary if we are to accomplish that which is truly important in our lives, setting aside, for the time being or perhaps permanently, those things which are not.

If we are to maintain both our priorities and our relationships, we will have to find a way to do this with an unwavering amount of both courtesy and courage.

Holistic Budo: As it is in budo, so too it is in life. As it is in life, so too it is in budo.

-Robert Van Valkenburgh is co-founder of Taikyoku Mind & Body, Severna Park’s Holistic Chamber of Commerce, and Kogen Dojo where he teaches Taikyoku Budo and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

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