The Tyranny of the Urgent

Wow... ever have one of those weeks when it just seems that everything that possibly could go wrong does go wrong? This has been one of those for me.

I rarely get sick, but I caught some kind of 24 hour bug that had me feeling bad all day Monday, up all night Monday night, then in bed trying to recover all day Tuesday. Of course, when something like that happens it puts you behind on everything else that has to be done. You get so busy running around trying to get caught up that you just make yourself even more miserable.

And in the middle of all that, it's easy to temporarily forget what's important.

When there are all kinds of "fires" to be put out-- all the things that we are behind on, all the work that needs to be caught up, the calls to be made, the papers to sign, etc.-- it's easy to let those things that are urgent distract us from those things that are truly important.

Years ago, I briefly skimmed a book entitled "The Tyranny of the Urgent". Basically the premise of the book was that we mustn't let the "urgent" be confused with the "important". Even though we must attend to those things that are urgent, we must remember what is actually important in our lives.

So... what things should be important?

Our faith... our families... our friends...

Are we letting ourselves miss the important things in life just because we're so busy with things that "just can't wait"?