What is the most important thing to you? Before you answer that, I’d like to talk about perspective. The best way to get perspective is to consider the question within different spans of time.
What is the most important thing to you in this moment, right now? Maybe it’s a quiet moment with the cup coffee in your hand. Right here, right now, what do you want most? This is the immediate gratification that you want right now.
What is the most important thing that you want this week? Maybe you are looking forward to the weekend where you don’t have any demands placed on you. You’ll get to sit back in your chair, and perhaps binge watch that show on Netflix you’ve been looking forward to.
What is the most important thing you want this year? Maybe you don’t have some important overriding desire for the year. But if you did have something, maybe it would be that your kids would be wiser, or that your marriage is better than last year. If you had something, it probably would be more important to you than the coffee or the TV show.
What is most important for you in the next ten years? Maybe you haven’t thought that far ahead. But I’m guessing that if in ten years you’re in the same place you are now, you’d be really disappointed. What really would matter to you in this ten year perspective? Will you be hoping you experience more success – that you’ll be in a better place in life? Maybe you’ll be hoping for more meaning in your life. You’ll finally get around to all those things you are putting off.
Finally, what is most important to you in the span of your life? What do you want your life to be about? Surely you will want more than just making it through the week, living for the weekend. With this perspective, you need to pick out the most meaningful thing you can identify, because on this time scale, if it doesn’t appear here, it won’t happen.
People are more important than things. At the end of our life, we will want to know that it mattered that we were here on this earth. We will want to know that people are significantly better off because of us. Otherwise, we are just a vapor – here today, gone tomorrow. What do you want your life to be about? Now answer, what is the most important thing to you?
