THE IMPORTANCE OF IMPORTANCE

With thanks to Andy Andrews

The busy-ness of grading events, people, and values in order of Importance
Is a highly personal,
(What's a high priority for me may not excite you in the slightest degree)
Naturally human,
(We all do it, automatically. almost every millisecond of the day)
And vastly overrated pastime.
(It doesn't add a sliver of happiness to the sum of us).

Notions like "This is more important to me than that",
Or "This person is more significant to me than that person"
Clag up our freedom to choose:
We become a victim
Of our own I-dentity, attachments and programming.

And for what?
All for a superstition called "Importance"
That doesn't stand up to any close scrutiny
Of our past experience?
Think back......
Remember all the times when what you thought was vitally important at one time
Turned out to be insignificant,
While other things that turned out in time to be momentous turning points,
Slipped on through almost unnoticed at the time.
We are, far too often for it to be accidental,
Poor judges of what's really important.
We don't have enough perspective for it.
We have too many vested attachments that cloud our judgment.

OK. Given that our notions of Importance are often too wobbly to rely upon,
What might happen if we could shift a step away
To a place of being where we realise that,
Regardless of what we think right here and now,
We really have very little idea of what might prove to be important
In the long run?
We cannot know.
Are you game enough to take that step?

From there, we could,
Just for the fun of it,
Do something we've never done before,
We could adopt an assumption,
[Just as an experiment to see what happens,]
That everything, large or small, is of equal importance,
Of equal value,
Of equal potential.
We could test-drive life for a while
From a stand-point where
Everything is important,
And nothing is more or less important.

It may take some courage,
But the leap is well worth it.

When we get
That nothing matters more or less than anything else,
And that any move we make matters just as much as any other action,
We will become free to live life proactively on purpose,
Unfettered by false, weighty notions of portentousness.

But don't take my word for it;
You won't discover that
Until you try it out for yourself --
For at least 3 weeks
(or 21 days, whichever is the shorter)
Let everything that comes to your notice
Be evenly important.
By all means, sort out what's urgent and non-urgent,
But let the idea of "importance" take  holiday
And notice how more refreshed and relaxed you feel
At the end of the trial.
You might like the results so much
You adopt it as a new way of being.

PS. Don't leave "Self-Importance" out of the game.
Give that a break, too.