Time and Priority
By Jeff Ginger
Last Updated 11/8/05
 So we all have some given amount of time in life. I'm really quite happy that I get 24 hours a day to operate. Yes I'm perfectly aware that our time system isn't necessarily right, or that perhaps it's a social institution that's too constraining. Just assume, for today, that time's a good system and that we all like it. I'd like to take it a step backwards and address a comparison that doesn't need time.
Often people will tell me they're really very busy. This is all fine and dandy but more often than not people will tell me they're too busy to do something. To me the phrase seems like a cop-out to the real truth. We have a lot of time on earth - spend it doing a lot of things. It's really easy for people to get stuck in the rut of thinking that they can't change how they spend their time. We have enough time in our lives to make time for most things we truly care about. How do we do this? Priority!
Priority is this wonderfully timeless concept that helps us organize what we do and care about. How we develop and understand our priorities is perhaps another issue worth exploring, but for now I'd like to illuminate the reality that we do what we prioritize as the most important. Sometimes we might say other things are more important, but if our actions demonstrate otherwise, are they? Okay so a more aggressive translation of what I'm saying is that if someone tells you that they're too busy to do something, it really means that they don't care enough about it to make or find time to do it. Now that's fine for the most part, but sometimes you can run people up a tree if you confront them on it.
 If the sun exploded today, what in your life will have TRULY mattered?
Everyone answers this question in their own way. For me, every homework assignment I've ever done simply doesn't matter. My GPA becomes a joke, the pressures or deadlines of work fade away. How well an event went or the outcome of a volleyball game or even my entire web site and life long lego projects... just disappear. I wash off pride about the speed of my computer or concerns about being stood up by some girl. What I'm left with is a collection of feelings and memories. Laughter, tears, scowls, smiles... the experiences of my life. The pinacle meaning to me are the lives I've touched and the lives that have touched me. I'm left with love.
Sometimes reducing the scale of the question is more managable. With the aforementioned inquiry fresh in your mind, now ask what in your daily life what matters to you the most?
Does comforting your friend who's just been dumped or feeding the homeless surpass your need to get 2% of your grade in some class, or is the homework assignment more important to you? Is it better to spend some time with someone you love on a Friday night or to help disabled children or to go out to a bar and get so screwed up that you puke your guts out? A better cut at directed at me - does playing a video game help further my mission in life more than making valentines for the elderly or reparing my dad's computer? Okay, so all of us do things that might not be the most morally best or selfless at any given moment. But considering and remembering our priorities and what matters the most to us I think is key. I know that the elderly won't be here forever, and video games probably will. I won't be young and vital enough to play volleyball or go rollerblading forever. I may be naive for thinking it, but my happiness and fulfillment to life isn't one that's very pivotal on getting perfect grades in my classes or making a lot of money. I'd like to think that I could flunk out of college and still enjoy my life helping people and learning to find love, in all its infinite forms. This is just my outlook, however, and it certainly could be wrong.
People make such powerful statements about what they believe simply through what they choose to do!
 I know this all seems edged towards condemning certain priorities, and well, it undoubtably is, but I can't help but be somewhat bias. Regardless, my splatter of words here is intended to get people to think about their priorities. Challenge what you think matters most to you in daily life. Examine how you spend your time, on what, with who, how, why, etc... What you make an effort to do really says something about how much you care about it.
If you realize that perhaps you're not so happy with your priorities as they are - you have the power to change them - or find new ones. Girls might ask out that guy (or girl) they think is cool in class. Guys might try telling their long time male friends how they've really mattered to them over the years. You might try running or learn to swim or enter a beauty contest. An engineer might paint a picture, an artist might try to program a computer. You could call your parents and thank them for doing all that they have for you, or write your grandfather a letter. Try calling that old friend on the phone, or IMing someone you haven't spoken to in ages. I've found that I meet more people and get better reactions by caring about their lives and investing time in understanding them than I ever could running my busy life waiting for others to come to me. We might all try to give to charitable causes or stand up for something we believe in.
So any takers? If it helps I originally wrote this editorial instead of my CS homework! Feedback is appreciated - All I'm really asking is for you to take a step back, and reconsider how you spend your time and what in life is most important to you.
Reactions
By Kristin Ginger
Okay, so my issue here is not with your message, which is good--essentially carpe diem isn't just a phrase to throw around, it's something to act on. But I feel like the more compelling question is what you do when you're not prioritizing between things like playing solitaire or comforting a woman who just miscarried; it's the question between solving hunger or saving the rainforest, going to an Amnesty International meeting or a Save the Earth meeting, choosing between a friend who was just dumped and a friend who just failed a class. I think those are the issues that are more complicated and under-addressed; those are the conflicts that really demand you examine your priorities. And at what point do you spend time on yourself instead of helping others, if that's your thing? I know so many activists who kill themselves working on Lower Energy Week and political action and human rights campaigns and at some point they DO have the right to just chill and watch a movie instead of calling for more donations or making more posters. But where is that line? Different people have different limits, and it's really hard to find yours.
Anyway. Those are the two sort of questions that I feel are more important when it comes to prioritizing...otherwise, I think there's a general consensus that carpe diem is a cool concept and we should all do it more.
Ping Ponging Back
By Jeff Ginger
Kris, you and I come from a background and environment where the question of meaningful use of our lives and helping others (whether we know them or not) isn't even a question - it's part of us, a definition of who we are. Some people don't get to that question. So yes, I understand completely the struggle to determine how and where to help - on a local scale, international, which organization, with who, etc... the above is more intended to be a flag waved in front of those people too selfish to see outside themselves or too wrapped up in the material or contrived social. Good point tho.
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