Life's priorities

Every now and then I must remind myself of the priorities in my life. My priorities are divided into three areas. There is a commitment to myself, to my family and to my job. Of course my faith is intertwined in each of these areas. It so very easy to get those commitments out of balance? What is balance, you ask? The answer is that it depends.

How do I know when I am in or out of balance? Not so easy to detemine because my priorities are interrelated. Work provides personal self satisfaction of doing something meaningful with my life. I work in the healthcare industry and can truly make a difference in the lives of others. Taking care of myself is connected with my family and with my work because I must be fit both physically and mentally to be successful in my job and to be an important part of my family. Without a stable family life my work will suffer and the commitment to myself will suffer. Yes....One has an impact on the other two. When one area is being stressed the other two will suffer.

I believe that a sign of being out of balance in priorities is the never ending search for happiness from outside factors. Overindulgence in anything will certainly lead to problems. You can eat too much, drink too much, spend too much, talk too much, go to church too much. Yes, it is true that you can go to church too much! I know of individuals that neglect their family due to the activities they are involved in at church.

So....to determine if your life is in balance you simply need to look at your indulgences and evaluate their impact on your priorities. Bring your indulgences back into line and life priorities will come back in line. Prayer is oh so helpful when it comes to dealing with overindulgence, I will not go into my overindulgences here.