Our Priorities in Light of Others

I like a clean house. A house where surfaces are cleared off, items aren't "stored" on the floor, and things tend to lean toward the minimal versus cluttered. My kids do not share this desire. The table is the best place to put all the things. Socks are habitually left in the middle of the floor for days, and rock, bug, and paper collections are always in abundance.

Clearly, we do not have the same priorities when it comes to how the house looks and feels.

Does this mean one of us is wrong? Because my kids' lack of caring doesn't align with my desire for a clean house, does this mean I am right and they are incorrect, and that their priorities aren't straight?

What are your priorities? And more specifically, do you tend to project your own priorities onto others, determining in your own mind that if someone's priorities aren't aligned with yours, then they are wrong? 

Faith, family, work, education, money, a clean house, a nice yard, a nice car, vacation, health, and safety are all areas of life that people prioritize. What would you list as your first five? Consider if someone you met listed their first five and they were different from yours. Are they wrong? Are you?

If priority is something that is regarded as more important than another, then it’s not so much a truth, as more of a personal opinion. When we push our opinion on others, and present it as truth, we start to get on shaky ground.

A source of anxiety can be when what we deem as important and necessary isn’t regarded the same by others. For example, you may like to be on time and would like others to be as well. This can cause anxiety to rise, and you’ll feel the need to control the situation. You’ll start hurrying others along; getting antsy and snappy when others aren’t moving at the speed that you want them to. 

But, if you view ‘being on time’ as a priority issue, and that perhaps the other person doesn’t see it as something that is that big of a deal, you can speak into your anxious thoughts and can stop taking it personally. You can see that it isn’t a live-or-die situation. You can then live in that moment, acknowledging that others’ priorities are different, and that’s okay.

A step in the right direction with healthy relationships is to acknowledge that someone’s priorities may be different than yours. Seeing the differences and not letting them upset us is a positive step. Finding similar priorities and culturing those is another step forward as well.

One way to grow intentionally is to be willing to look inward and be open to errors in our own thinking. Think through where your priorities lie and what you deem most important in life. We tend to shape our lives by our priorities. Be OK when others do the same.

Challenges/Points:

• A priority is something that is regarded as more important than another.

• Healthy relationships acknowledge that priorities may be different from each other and don’t force the other to give up their priorities for them.

• One way to grow intentionally is to be willing to look inward and be open to errors in our own thinking with priorities.

Questions:

• Think of someone in your life that perhaps you have a contention with right now. Think through what perhaps their priorities are. Is their list different from yours?

• Can the contention be brought back to the fact that one of you (or both!) is seeing the other as wrong because of it?

• What would you name as your top five priorities in life?

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