Imagine that each of your obligations, duties, and priorities rang throughout your day like a resonant bell.
You might hear the sound of ten, or fifty, or even a hundred ringing bells, some loud and urgent, some raspy and annoying, some piercing and demanding, some pleasantly musical and intriguing. If they all ring at once, they would likely destabilize your health, and perhaps push you into sensory overload – a state where you couldn’t – or wouldn’t want to – hear any of the bells.
Modern life is full of both opportunities and responsibilities. At times, there can be too many bells. Too many choices. Too many “high priorities.”
It is up to us to strike a balance between what we would like to do and what we must do.
If the goal is a calm, manageable, and satisfying life, we face a reckoning: Not all our desired pursuits are possible. To choose wisely means to distinguish and focus. When all of our bells ring at once, can any one of them be heard?
The operative phrase for avoiding an overwhelmed state is, “distinguish and focus.” The goal is to select which bells we want to pay attention to, and when.
The bells that ring in our ears throughout the day come in three varieties: obligations, duties, and priorities.
First let’s distinguish each of these ever-ringing bells, before considering some important questions:
Obligations
Obligations are externally referenced commitments that you are required to keep or fulfill because you agreed to do so.
You signed a contract, you took out a mortgage, you made a promise.
To be obligated means you’re on the hook: obligations bind you to an agreed-upon expectation of another party.
You might not like it, but you do it, because you said you would.
If you decide to beg out, or change your mind, you’ll have others to contend with.
Duties
Duties differ from obligations.
Duties are internally referenced commitments you make to yourself. They emerge from personal values:
“I have made a commitment to myself to take care of my mother in her old age.”
“I will enlist in the Navy.”
“I’m going to lose weight because I want to live to see my grandchildren.”
“I’ll be there for my kids.”
“I will vote.”
These are responsibilities you take on to stay faithful and accountable to yourself.
You decide what your duties are. No one is twisting your arm.
You don’t impose your duties on others, or adopt another’s duties for yourself.
Priorities
Priorities are the relationships, tasks, and activities that you choose to focus on first, based on their importance to you, or their urgency.
You decide to attend the funeral of a friend instead of watching your favorite football team.
Workouts in the gym leave little time for the novels you’d love to read. You’re good with that.
The pain in the butt of closing down the kitchen before you retire for the night, beats waking up to a sink full of dishes.
There’s nothing like mint chocolate chip ice cream, but you settle for healthier options, a trade-off between short-term pleasure and long-term benefit.
When you prioritize, you state a clear declaration:
“Some relationships are more important to me than others.”
“Some jobs are more urgent even when it’s inconvenient.”
“Not all opportunities or risks are the same: “I cannot give equal energy to everything.”
“Some things won’t get done, some choices I make will disappoint people.”
“What I must do is more important than what I would like to do.”
Selecting priorities is about order and sequence: “The most important will be first and the least important will be last.”
It’s wise to prioritize.
That includes prioritizing obligations and duties.
What gets in the way is something I’m sure you are familiar with: distractions.
Distractions
Distractions are breaks we take from obligations, duties, and priorities. Distractions might be personally selected, or automatic.
That football team I love, those video games that awaken my adrenalin, that rabbit-hole internet surfing, those low value conversations I get dragged into – these are my respites from a busy life.
Distractions are not brimming with ultimate meaning, they just help us take a deep sigh, change scenery, break away for a while.
In that sense, trivial pursuits have a place.
Unless they become addictive. Unless a craving for distraction and busyness takes control of our cortex. Unless we staple the Superman or Superwoman cape to our torso.
Unless the important stuff begins to suffer. That’s when the distractions become toxic.
Considerations
What are your five highest priority obligations?
What are your five most important duties, in order of priority?
Who are the ten most important people in your life to spend time with?
To what extent is play a priority? How do you tell when leisure time is necessary for balance? When does it become a distraction?
Choosing the bells you want to ring helps you own your life and leadership.
You can’t control all the variables, but your degree of agency – “I am responsible” – defines what you want and don’t want, what you will do and won’t do.
No one else can decide which bells you want to ring, and when. That’s the fun – and burden – of being alive.
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