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Figuring Out, What is My #1 Priority?

I have many goals in my life. But the last few weeks since this post, I've been trying to identify my #1 priority for my life (not just this year) by contemplating the question, what is the One Thing I want to accomplish some day?

As a Homeschooling Mom, I draw rich meaning and purpose in my life from facilitating the education of my children. And at first, I identified as my One Thing: "I want to raise children who are happy, spiritual, righteous, serving, educated, and productive, and have a good relationship with them". 

 From the beginning, I knew this #1 priority was missing something. For starters, it was missing God. But, I justified this by telling myself, I serve God by serving my children, and raising great children is what I feel God wants my purpose right now to be. Raising well-adjusted children as my #1 is also problematic because, despite my best efforts, it is out of my control. They have their free will. I will do my best, but perhaps they won't be happy, and won't be productive, or will be lacking in some other way. If my sense of success is wrapped up in their success, I am potentially robbing myself of the ability to be happy. And a third problem with this #1 priority--what happens when the children have moved out of my home and have moved on with their lives? If seeing to their education and development is my #1 priority, it seems like becoming an empty nester would be devastating to me, and rob my life of meaning and purpose.

Yes, raising happy, spiritual, righteous, serving, educated, productive children and having a good relationship with them is very important to me. But through prayer and contemplation, I've determined this, by itself, is not my #1.

So what is my #1? It is subject to change in the future as I learn and ponder more, but for now, I feel content with the following as my life's priority: "I want to love God with all my heart might mind and strength, and love my fellowman as Jesus loves them." This goal is in keeping with what Jesus identified as the first and second of all the commandments. It’s all about relationships.

Some people might think this is simple, and ask how this can be my life's purpose. But for me, loving--really loving--isn't simple. It's something I struggle with on a daily basis. It's so easy to slip in to seeing people as objects and not people (check out this great book on that subject), or focusing on accomplishing tasks over building relationships. To me, loving God and loving my neighbor is a lifelong journey. And it's a journey of the greatest importance. When I'm on my death bed, I don't think I'll care too much about the awards I won, the cool trips I took, the people I proved wrong, how clean I kept my house, the money I made, etc. I think what I'll care about is my relationship with God, and how I loved my family and everyone around me. 

I feel at much greater peace with this iteration of my #1 priority. My next challenge is to find out what I need to do in the next 5 years, this year, this month, this week, and today and every day to work toward this goal. What’s the One Thing I can do right now, so I’m on track to achieve my goal today, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this week, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this month, so I’m on track to achieve my goal this year, so I’m on track to achieve my 5 year goal, so I’m on track to achieve my someday goal? (From the excellent book, The One Thing.)


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