The purpose of this blog is not discussing politics. There’s plenty of those resources out there if that’s your thang.
My purpose is to encourage you to live a prioritized life.
That’s what living Simply in the Suburbs is all about: navigating suburban distractions using the compass of your priorities.
Politics is merely one of the obstacles or events along the path. Since we’re a selfish lot, political issues don’t rear their ugly heads very often, but when they do, especially these days, it can get pretty nasty.
That’s the beauty of developing a prioritized life.
You take out your compass – your priorities – and navigate your political landscape accordingly and continue along your journey.
The rigamarole in our country over Hillary and Donald has been stressful at best, demoralizing at worst. And it can be difficult to clarify where your priorities should have led you or should lead you. How should you engage your options? Turn right or turn left? Or try to find a completely different, tiny, thin creek to paddle down because both the right hand stream and the left hand stream appear full of treacherous waters.
The choices are difficult and anxiety-ridden. What to do? What to do?
The clearer and clearer you learn how to apply the principles of your prioritized life to these choices, the simpler it becomes to navigate them.
Let’s be clear, simpler, as they say, does not equal easy. But it does mean that you’ll have clarity.
To go all-in on the river navigation metaphor, you’ll find that there will be people and circumstances that stir up the waters and throw big boulders into the stream, making you nervous or fearful or even strangely guilty about your choices.
Your decisions – based on the priorities you’ve chosen for yourself and your family – will lead through crazy, often dangerous stretches of turbulent surf.
But you’ll be going in the direction you’ve chosen. You will not be veering off course.
Otherwise?
You begin to navigate by always choosing the peaceful, calm option. You allow yourself to float slowly down the serene stream without a care in the world or even much effort or thought. Nobody will bother you on this stream.
But there’s the outside chance that while the water barely ripples as you float along, you’ll start to realize one of two things. Either you’ll pull out your map and realize you’re exceedingly far off the course you had previously chosen for yourself or, worse, you’ll start hearing a very loud roaring sound.
It’s quiet at first but picks up volume as you float pleasantly along. No warning. Just a waterfall.
Obviously, all metaphors break down and I’m being a bit dramatic to prove a point.
And I’m referencing politics because it’s an easy thing to pick on right now (in retrospect of course), but this principle applies, regardless of the obstacle, circumstance, or event that happens to present itself to you at any given moment.
By developing the skill of living by our priorities, we will develop a stronger ability to make difficult decisions – even if those decisions require riding the rapids for a stretch.
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I’m working on a full-length book right now on this idea of living a prioritized life.
If you’d like to be kept up-to-date on the book’s progress and perhaps even be an occasional sounding board for me, please reply to this email and let me know or click here to get on the notification list.
