Earlier this week my wife said, “you know it’s all made up, right?” This was in response to me saying I had things I had to get done. I said, “I know. But it’s still important. to. me.”
The unspoken it she was referring to? The priority. The urgency. The made up construct of importance.
She was right. I immediately understood the point. I agree with the point. I think about this point of view every day. That the things we worry about and obsess over are all just part of some construct that we’ve created (or someone else has created and we’re choosing to adhere to).
But those things are still important. to. me.
I choose to let them be important. Finishing the thing. Publishing the thing.
Talking about the thing.
And maybe acknowledging…
that the importance of the thing that I’m (we’re) so obsessed over is actually just some construct of my (our) own doing/thinking/making…
is grounding.
is calming.
Acknowledging that the urgency is of my own control is empowering. Actually energizing. It excites me to do the thing. My urgency to prioritize the work to get the thing done is of my own accord. It’s not some external force or pressure or priority outside of my control. It’s my desire and my curiosity and my priority to see the thing done.
That feels good. That is real motivation. That is ownership of an idea and of how I choose to spend my finite time. I have aspirational visions of how my investment of effort will result in meaningful rewards and that drives my prioritization of time and subsequent urgency. Why the urgency though? That’s the part unexplained. The urgency is the result of the other ideas. Some supporting. Some adjacent. Some unrelated. All in service of the bigger picture of output driving rewards. Rewards? What of these rewards though? Yes, yes, some financial, others artful. Wait, where is this going? Now rambling at the fire pit we are. Talking in “we’s”. Uh-oh. This has devolved. Or has it driven to baseline truth. Hmm. Rewards. Right. We were… I were… I was talking about rewards. Rewards from the outcome. I believe we are all operating on multiple planes of existence at once, and each of these planes is driven by different motivations. Once basic needs are met, we are freed to strive to meet other needs. Material. Emotional. Intellectual. Spiritual. So our priorities and urgencies are in conflict with these needs, and when these needs are all in our present consciousness, we feel a sense of urgency to complete these ideas so that we can move on to the next.
When an abundance of ideas exist, all of which have value across these different planes of needs, urgency arises.
This is not an indictment of values, rather a validation of diverse interests and thoughts. This urgency means you are alive and excited to contribute to the collective consciousness of the species. To be a part of something larger than self. Larger than self.