By Dr. Dennis Merritt Jones
What we love defines our lives.
With February being the “Love Month”, I would like to offer you a different perspective of how love defines our lives in ways you may not have considered. To a large degree, who we are is defined by what we love.
So, the quintessential question really isn’t just “who” do you love, but “what” do you love?
If you take this question seriously, it will not only help you clarify what your priorities are, but it will help you see who you are. If you can remain honest with yourself, you may discover that sometimes it is appropriate to stop and recalibrate those priorities. Place them in a new order, an order that transcends the needs of the head and focuses on honoring the needs of the heart, soul, and spirit, which quite often seem to get pushed to the bottom of the priority list. While it may not always be pleasant, it is easy to determine whether a recalibration of your priorities is in order.
Take a look at what is at the center of your life. Where do you spend your precious energy and time? Where is your attention focused? This is where love actually resides. Granted, it is easy to come up with many good, logical reasons why our priorities are the way they are. I have heard them all, and frankly at times I’ve tried a lot of them too.
A few prime examples might be “Without this job I spend so much of my life at, I wouldn’t be able to support my family” or “I’ve got to get out on that golf course every weekend, because I have too much stress from my job, which I spend all my time at” or “I can’t get up early enough to get to church on Sunday because it’s my only day off, and I am tired from playing golf and poker on Saturday” or “I would get to the gym and exercise, taking care of my health and honoring my body temple, but I have to get to work!” On and on and on the cycle goes unbroken.
My point is this: Is it wrong to “love” our work, recreation time, and our individual pursuits, which seem necessary to keep on keeping on? No, of course not. If anything, let’s hope we do love those things greatly but not at the expense of our core values–that which truly makes us whole.
What makes us whole, really? A good place to start may be our relationships: first and foremost, the relationship we are having with life and the God of our being and, second, the relationship we are having with ourselves, our family, and our friends. The challenge we seem to face as a culture is that we tend to get caught up in the external pursuits in life, and our priorities become distorted: The doing, getting, and achieving become more important than the being; being one with God and being present with our loved ones. If this rings a familiar bell, perhaps it is time to reexamine your priorities. What do you love, really? Just look at the center, the hub of your life, and you will know.
As a mindfulness practice, take out your calendar or date book right now and open it to next week’s schedule. Count the number of dates and commitments you have made that will dominate your life: This is what you love. If what you love reveals a center (or focus) with which you are happy and are pleased to call the core of your life, congratulations! If it doesn’t, don’t despair. Simply call forward the awareness that you can choose to set new priorities, beginning today.
Where do you begin? Listen to your heart, it will tell you exactly what your priorities need to be. Life is quite wonderful when we honor what we love by consciously making it the center of our lives. This can never happen until we are crystal clear on our priorities. Tomorrow never comes, so do it now!