Reorganizing my priorities

So much of the last several years has been spent focused on money, bills, things... things that aren't important; things that won't mourn me, remember me, or matter; things that don't care about me because they aren't capable of caring. I got so focused on "work", on earning and advancing that I completely missed the point not just of my chosen career but of life.

Everyone does this to a point, I think, and I'm not beating myself up over it because I've begun to change it (or at least I see it as much in myself as I see it in others whom I would criticize for such behavior - PROGRESS!); I'm simply making an observation as a starting point. 

While journeying back to health, I have begun to search myself for the true meaning of beauty¹ so that I might be able to properly call myself a "beauty educator" and someone who knows what she's talking about. In doing so, I have begun to actually "get" it. I don't know when I'll be able to get it enough to practice it full time and teach it to others, and attract people who want to teach this lesson themselves, but one step at a time, you know? 

Step one, then, was reorganizing my priorities. Or, at least actually prioritizing the things that I claim are my priorities², rather than being so focused on things that don't really matter that I paralyze myself with stress. So, what are my claimed priorities?

1. Faith
2. Family
3. Career

That means that spending time with what I consider to be g-d each day, in prayer, meditation, and gratitude; not just saying a few things in the morning and not really feeling it. It also means practicing presence³, spending more time in my feet than my head. In spending time with g-d, I'll also be taking better care of myself, making sure to eat 2-3 meals a day with at least one snack in there somewhere, and also promising to move my body in a way that I find enjoyable⁴.

My second priority being family, means that in my weekly goals I have a promise to spend some time with a family member every week. It means calling my mother more⁵. I have further goals to have dates, and reaching out to a friend OFF Facebook⁶.

Finally, I have career and work goals to accomplish too, but I must perform those duties from a place of fulfilling my obligations to my g-d, myself, and my family and knowing that those obligations will not be fulfilled by my career but by my love, devotion, maturity, and presence. The ironic thing being, I think I'll be a lot more successful coming at it from this perspective, rather than through force. I'll be able to connect better, and I'll (hopefully) stop using moments, and therefore people, as means to ends. Having my moments, and my interactions with other people be ends in themselves, I will connect and be genuine for reals this time.

There is still darkness I have to face and move through, but I have the power to do that now so I'm not as afraid of it as I was before.

_______________________________________________

1. This will be discussed in a later blog, sorry, it's kind of not relevant right now

2. After a long, painful, exhausting conversation with the Emperor, I realized that this was an issue that I have a lot of trouble with too.

3. Okay, I'll give you a sneak-peek of the beauty discussion: presence is absolutely necessary for beauty to even begin to be possible

4. With the focus being feeling good and keeping my body from breaking down and being useless.

5. Yes, I know.

6. What a freakin concept!