The most challenging lesson, I had to learn in life was prioritizing the people and “things” to the proper order. I consider myself a very intelligent person; however, one of my greatest weaknesses is trying to help (and/or take on) the workload and issues of just about anyone who I feel could benefit from my help. Selflessness is a great quality, but sadly it is a quality that many people will take advantage of if they realize it is a weakness of someone else.

So this life lesson has taught me that the proper order of priority is as follows:

1) Yourself – You have to 1st be able to take care of yourself including your basic needs (health, mind, body, & “spirit”) if you plan to survive in this world….which is a bloody brutal place if you don’t take care of the one person that is within your control (aka = YOU). Furthermore, you are absolutely useless to anyone else if you, yourself, are in total chaos. Putting yourself 1st is not being selfish, it’s setting yourself up to become responsible for the many other people and things you may and will at times be directly involved with.

2) Get Your House in order. This means the 2nd priority are those people who tend to be closest to you (Husband/Wife, Children etc…) A Happy Home = A Healthy Home.

3) Your closest connected family. These are your parents and potentially grand-parents. This is one of the big areas that seems to slip away fairly often in the US today, as putting Mom and Dad in an “Assisted Living Facility” is more convenient because our priorities of making a living seem to engulf majority of the time we have. (I am not saying that putting your parents or grand parents in a facility is an awful thing to do…as this can be the only option a family is able to make. What I am saying, is that if you are able to incorporate these important people into your House and take a shared responsibility for their needs as they get up there in age — by showing them love and returning the timely sacrifice they gave when you were just on your way up in this life — is a greater choice. Also it is a proven fact that when we give back more to those who have sacrificed their time for us, our brains release more serotonin and oxytocin — which all in all makes everyone feel pleasure beyond the activity for which it is being produced.

4) Your Closest “REAL” friends and perusing work or passions that give your life a deeper meaning. Many folks claim to have 25, 50, or even 100 friends. But in reality majority of us have 4 to 8 good friends, and only 2 to 3 “REAL” friends (one which is and should be your partner or spouse). Now when I say “Real” friends – I always get the raised eyebrow from just about everyone I say this to. A real friend is a person that tells you how it really is, they are not about the bull-shit. A real friend, will listen to you, inspire you, motivate you and challenge you — to become the best version of yourself. These friends are not there to sugar coat your ego, as a matter of fact these people are there to kick your ego to the curb, so that the REAL you can shine! If you happen to have a person or a couple of people like this in your life…HANG ON TO THEM, as they are really hard to find. So in this 4th priority – True Friends helping True Friends is so valuable, and whilst keeping and developing these true well grounded relationships don’t forget to find a passion or life goal that gives you a reason to wake up each day knowing what purpose you bring to the lives of the people you may touch, simply through the work you will be doing.

and the 5th and final priority (or in my case the priority, that I always seemed to place at the top of the list)

5) EVERYONE and EVERYTHING ELSE!! Like I said at the top of this post…we all want to make others happy, and ironically this is an impossible task to achieve. You cannot make anyone happy — rather you can show or teach a person the ways to minimize suffering in this life in order for these people to generate and discover their own path to happiness.

*On a side note…another life lesson I picked up along my journey thus far is that life is not about being happy. Life is all about suffering. (This is where you say…What the hell are you talking about David?? But seriously when you contemplate this at the deepest level of reflection, you will uncover this statement to be absolute fact.* The purpose of life is suffering, and the journey within this path of suffering is to find ways to minimize this suffering not only for yourself, but for those people you touch on a daily basis. And if you want to dive even deeper, remove those elements within your life that do not serve you or work towards developing your best version. By following this practice, I can guarantee you will avoid adding any more unnecessary suffering into this already difficult life experience.
We also innately have this paternal/maternal to want to do the right thing. Some of us, this need to want to fix everyone and everything in the world takes on the top spot…and overtime in the long run actually creates greater distruction. Not to sound like a parrot but, Priority #1 is so important to understand, and so many of us interpret this as a self indulgent weakness. All I can say my friends, is if you don’t get the man right you will never get the world right….It all starts with you, the internal YOU!

Majority of us want to be good people, and would rather remove suffering from the lives of ourselves and those closest to us. But is can become so easy to be dragged into a world filled with drama – as you try to band-aid every little problem for every single person we feel the need to help. Trust me and take my word for this….YOU CANT HELP EVERYONE…you are just not that flexible. My advice….start with the stuff within your control, and work your way out to those closest to you….but at the end of the day — Get yourself Right while getting your house in order. Then and only then, should you pick and choose the people and groups you want to help – one small piece at a time.

I love you all, Namaste!