When the Priorities Change
“The great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr
It’s funny how much can change in a year without you really noticing it while it’s happening. You get up, go to work, take care of whatever needs taken care of, and try to find a little time for yourself somewhere in between. Then, every once in a while, you look around and realize that the life you’re living today looks quite a bit different from the one you were living not all that long ago.
When I first got sober, staying sober was pretty much the priority. It had to be. I knew what drinking had done to my life, and I knew I didn’t want to go back to it. There were other things I wanted to accomplish, but none of them were going to matter much if I couldn’t get that part figured out first. Sobriety required my attention, and for a while, it occupied a pretty significant amount of it.
I couldn’t tell you exactly when that changed. There wasn’t some particular morning when I woke up and decided I had everything figured out. Somewhere along the way, though, staying sober stopped being the first thing on my mind every morning. It didn’t become less important. I just found myself thinking about other things. Eventually, those other things started taking up more room.
When I started writing Soberman Sundays, I was looking for something productive to do with my time. I wanted something that would challenge me and maybe help me make sense of a few things along the way. Fifty-two weeks sounded like a pretty good idea. One essay a week for an entire year. How difficult could that possibly be?
Well, forty-two weeks later, I can tell you it’s a bigger commitment than I originally imagined.
Some weeks, the words come easily. Other weeks, Sunday seems to show up about three days earlier than it should, and I’m wondering what in the world I’m going to write about. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it. I do. It’s just that when I started this project, I was trying to find meaningful ways to occupy my time. Now I’m occasionally trying to figure out where I’m going to find the time to keep doing the things I’ve committed myself to. There’s a little irony in that, and I can appreciate it.
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Over the past year, I’ve started building my own business, become more involved in recovery work, and taken on responsibilities that weren’t part of my life when this project began. I’ve found myself interested in things I probably wouldn’t have imagined doing a year ago. None of it happened according to some carefully organized plan. Opportunities came along, circumstances changed, and I made decisions that eventually led me here.
I don’t mention any of that because I think being busy is some great accomplishment. Having a full schedule doesn’t automatically mean you’re living a fulfilling life. Sometimes it just means you’ve gotten really good at finding more things to do. And believe me, I can be pretty good at that.
But I have started looking at my time a little differently. I’ve become more aware that my attention, abilities, and energy are worth something. I still enjoy helping people, and I don’t think that’s going to change. But I’ve also learned that every commitment I make is time I’m choosing not to spend somewhere else. Sometimes that’s a worthwhile trade, and sometimes it isn’t. I’m still figuring out the difference.
I think that’s part of what happens when your priorities begin to change. It’s not necessarily that the things you cared about before stop mattering. Sometimes your life simply grows to include things you hadn’t considered. What seemed important six months ago might still matter today, but it may no longer require the same amount of attention.
Sobriety is a good example of that for me. I haven’t forgotten what it took to get here, and I certainly don’t take it for granted. But the point of getting sober wasn’t to spend the rest of my life thinking about nothing but staying sober. It was to have a life worth participating in.
And that’s what I’ve been doing.
Some days that means working on a computer, spending time with someone I love, or getting involved in another project that will probably take three times longer than I originally anticipated. Other days it means dealing with responsibilities I didn’t see coming or accepting that something I wanted to accomplish will have to wait until tomorrow. None of it is particularly extraordinary, but I don’t think it needs to be.
I don’t know what the next year is going to look like. If this past year has taught me anything, it’s that I’m probably not nearly as good at predicting the future as I sometimes think I am. I’m sure there will be new opportunities, unexpected responsibilities, and a few more things I’ll convince myself won’t take nearly as much time as they actually do.
But I’m looking forward to finding out.
I haven’t forgotten why I started this journey. I just have more reasons to keep going.
