Priorities

My priorities draw hard and fast lines around what should be most important to me. They organize what matters most and are related to my personal values.

Pyramid of Priorities

                *                  <-- least important
          Career / Job
      Family / Relationship
 Spirituality / Faith / Character  <-- most important

the "*" at the top refers to a anything else

This pyramid shows my priorities and what is most important to me at the bottom, forming a foundation or base. The higher on the pyramid, the less of a priority something is. The best decisions that follow the two rules above will touch the fewest places on the pyramid as possible. When decisions need to affect one of the categories in the pyramid, they should ideally sacrifice something in the top levels first, and the bottom levels last.

In the event a decision I have to make would damage either my integrity or my career prospects, my integrity is at a more foundational level of my ethics being lower on the pyramid and would be the proper choice. With issues of more significant consequence, buying time to make a decision makes sense. In that way, the Taoist idea to "do nothing" means it might resolve itself.

Even major decisions should follow my priorities in the pyramid.