Obviously, television watching is less important to us than a lot of other things.

But deciding whether it is more important to work in one career rather than another is a whole lot trickier.

I admit, this kind of question is much harder to answer. It basically boils down to “What is the meaning for my life?”

Philosophers have spent centuries trying to answer it, so it is not an easy task. But simply the act of trying to answer it yields its own rewards…

My post was more about those things of obvious difference in importance. Even though finding what is absolutely most important can be incredibly difficult, most of us can go a long way to narrow down the list before it gets really hard to decide…

“I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.”

I can remember having a recent conversation with someone about how much time we were each working. I’ve been working hard on a software project to teach goals and had happened to spend ten hours that day working on it. The person I talked to had worked about six hours of their weekend on work they had to take home from their job.

I don’t complain about working that much on my project, because it is simply that important to me that I do it. However, that doesn’t make it the same as relaxing all day, either.

During the conversation the person told me that at least I was doing something I chose to, something that I enjoyed. At which point I made a point which was basically a summary of this article. Quite frankly, if you aren’t doing something that you don’t feel is important, then why are you doing it?

Do people honestly feel good being a martyr to the unimportant?

That attitude of “woe is me, I don’t have enough time” really illustrates their lack of understanding of time and life itself. Basically what there saying is, “I have no control over my time and no discipline to do what really matters.” Harsh words, but dying without living a life of meaning is harsh too.