Читать книгу Comfortable Chaos - Carolyn Harvey & Beth Herrild - Страница 13

Now that you have an understanding of where your time goes and your vision of utopia, the next step is to make the link to priorities. A great deal has been written about identifying your values and priorities but the Comfortable Chaos approach is to give you a shortcut.

Picture yourself at about age 85 and imagine yourself looking back on your current phase of life. You are of course healthy, vibrant, and, thanks to new youth-enhancing beauty treatments, looking quite lovely. As you remember this time with young children, or whatever phase you are in, what memories do you want to have? Maybe it’s family dinners. Maybe it’s achieving a certain career goal. Maybe it’s the time you spent curled up on your window seat reading. Maybe it’s vacations to exotic parts of the world. Or maybe it is stress-free summer vacations with lots of time for everyone to do nothing.

If you have children, also think about what memories you would like them to have. They may overlap with some of yours but there could also be some uniquely kid-inspired ones. What are some of your favorite childhood memories? What do you wish they were?

This “memories” exercise can help you clarify your priorities for this point in your life. What will be really important in 10 years and 20 years? Keep in mind that not all your goals, ambitions, and hopes are likely to be satisfied in one segment of your life. For example, you may have a goal to climb Mount Everest. However, if you currently have young children, this may not be a realistic priority right now. But it doesn’t mean it can’t be a priority when they get older. Perhaps you can find another goal for the short term, such as joining a rock-climbing gym and taking a class.

When asked about her priorities, Nancy, one of our interviewees who is a parent, grandparent, and working professional, said, “My priority is to have the time and money for relationships. For most people, there is a trade-off between time and money. You never have enough of each — and in the end it isn’t going to matter. You will run out of time and you will die penniless. Relationships and what you did to contribute are what matters.”

Nancy’s statement is one person’s high-level view on priorities. As you think about your current priorities, try and be specific to this period of time and include the details. For example, you may list “children” as a priority. But what about raising children is a priority? Is it a private school education? Is it a certain parenting style? Or perhaps a specific value system? The implications of each are different so be precise about each priority. Use Exercise 2 to jot down your current priorities. You don’t need to be 100 percent sure that this is your “final answer.” You can change and update them whenever you want to, but it is important to periodically put them down on paper.