Not really. And by the way, thanks for asking a question that invites us to think out loud at our leisure with no pressing need to get to the point. You are very kind. Not many are willing to wade through the loads of malarkey I usually put out. Every time. Tell you what. I’ll tell you in advance this is a great answer, so you can just skip to the bottom and hit GA, and not worry about bothering yourself with the possibility of learning something.
My priorities are my family and my friends and my health. My health is mostly concerned with mental health right now, and that has a lot of dimensions, such as spiritual and creative and social elements. A major concern is feeling good about myself, which requires that other people feel good about me. This is somewhat problematic, since I am a prickly character with strong beliefs and convictions and I don’t like to be manipulated.
I have children, and my responsibility, as I see it, is to put them through college. I have a wife, and my responsibility is to attend to our marriage and help her feel heard and loved and to care for her. Right now that means taking her to the doctor, as she fell off the steps yesterday and whacked herself but good on the concrete sidewalk. She may have a concussion.
I have other relationships that require a certain amount of time and attention, and these are important for my mental health, because they help me feel valued and loved and like I belong.
In addition, there is the community, which is important to me. I want to make the world a better place for my children, and that means involvement in politics and urban planning and planning for the future of the schools. It’s a lot. But it all matters.
Which brings me back to the issue of your question: focus. Can you “focus” on so much? Not really. You have to divide your attention. All these things matter. But there have to be priorities. If I don’t care for my mental health, then I get sick, and I’m useless for anything else. I might start hurting my children and wife and friends, instead of helping them. I might drive them away. I might be useless to the community. I might be unable to get out of bed.
But if my mental health is good, I can work on other things. Still, it seems selfish to focus on myself, when the others are so important. Yet I learned, to my dismay, that if I don’t take care of myself, I am useless for anything else. So I have to be selfish. Maybe I shouldn’t call it being selfish. But it does seem like selfishness to care for myself and to try to make sure I am happy and feeling loved. What a conundrum!
Sorry I couldn’t please you with concision. But as you can see, you don’t really matter. I have more important concerns. But thanks for your concern for your answerers. Every time.
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