A friend asked about my priorities in life. After some pondering, this was my response, in the form of a mini-essay, after some pondering. (Such questions are truly food for thought!) <\/p>\n
Well, I have a bucket list, things I want to do before I kick the bucket. Really, there are fuzzy boundaries. But still, consider a thousand things to do, ranked on a scale of preferences, from 1 \u2013 1000, from yuk to oh boy: It seemed to my my preferences would fall on a bell-shaped curve. Those at the bottom, from 1-150, I’d pay good money not to do them! 150-300, I would try to avoid them. Items at 300 – 600\u2014most activities— I’m sort of neutral. If dragged along, I’d smile weakly, but basically I\u2019d be indifferent. Some of these, I think, are more duty than enjoyment. <\/p>\n
For those on the \u201cupper\u201d side, from 600-1000, let\u2019s say that I might like to do these activities, but realistically, or in terms of affording the time, money, or overall investment of energy, realistically I can’t fit them all in. Let’s see, 600 – 700, these might be fun but they\u2019re far from high priorities. I would say truthfully, if asked, yeah, that sounds nice, or like fun; but I know I\u2019d be unlikely to participate.<\/p>\n
At the next rank, 700-800, there\u2019s higher line-ride ratio. That’s the ratio of how long you need to wait in line at, say, a Disneyland ride for how much fun the ride is. Depends on how tired you are, how cold or hot it is, how many kids around or, worse, if you have to carry the kid. The ratio goes way up if you need to go to the bathroom. Another way to say this is Price \/ payoff. At 800-900, lower ratio, more fun, less stress; more desirable. <\/p>\n
The truth is as we get into the final 900 – 1000, my higher priorities, I have to shift into higher gear, to exert more discrimination, because this is getting serious. I notice, for example, that some of these 600 – 940 scoring items are, for me, distractions. They seem attractive, but pursuing them would distract me from the top 60 things I want to do. Some distractions involve a necessary straw to wheat (or bulls**t to meat) ratio, as in watching television. Number of dumb or lame or annoying elements, including time spent on commercials, for meaty stuff that I could say, "gee, I’m glad I didn’t miss that." I remember that for me some skits on Saturday Night Live used to be very delightful, a new form of parody, comic strip. Now they’re on the edge of lame, just don’t have the snap and fun. Some of this might be them, some might be that the novelty has worn off. <\/p>\n
Of late I\u2019ve become aware, though, that I need to trim the top sixty to maybe a top thirty and forego the others (sigh). Hey, life is getting shorter and the desire to live my life\u2014not the life promised by my fantasies\u2014which is 100 times greater than reality permits\u2014requires some focusing, maturity, choice. I\u2019m reminded of the lyrics in Joni Mitchell\u2019s 1968 song, \u201cBoth Sides Now,\u201d \u201cSomething\u2019s lost and something\u2019s gained from living every day.\u201d <\/p>\n
In another blog I may list my 30 or so priorities, perhaps under autobiography, but these, too, are in flux as the my state of health, the status of close others, and other circumstances change. The point is that in the past I would get caught up swimming among the mid-range, from 200 (because I thought I \u201cshould\u201d or \u201chad to\u201d through 700 (because it seemed like a good idea at the time). As Frank Sinatra sang in his trademark song, \u201cMy Way\u201d (actual lyrics by Paul Anka), \u201c…regrets, I have a few, but then again, too few to mention.\u201d My hope is that each person may be aware of this spectrum, construct a sort of list of priorities, recognizing the different sub-categories, and that this kind of scale can help people live and choose with more consciousness. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend asked about my priorities in life. After some pondering, this was my response, in the form of a mini-essay, after some pondering. (Such questions are truly food for thought!) Well, I have a bucket list, things I want to do before I kick the bucket. Really, there are fuzzy boundaries. But still, consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16,15,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-papers","category-favoritethings","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}