you are your priorityYou are your priority list.  Men are taught sacrifice for the family. Women neglect themselves in placing the family first. Parents primarily dote on the children to the exclusion of doting on each other and  adult children are even guilted into prioritizing aging parents.  We are generally conditioned from very young, even hardwired to care for others first, to a point of self-denial.  I cover this a bit more and propose a different approach in my book.

Self-fulfillment, making yourself happy and taking care of you, is generally thought selfish, dishonorable or wrong.  Meaning also that the joy of finding your own destiny and pursuing it with a vengeance…is discouraged.  Do you sometimes harbor an internal struggle between “what is the right thing to do and what is the thing you really want to do?”

In exploring the priority of you,  ask yourself outloud, what is your calling?  Think about your life mission or earthly quest if you will?  In foretelling your legacy, I personally like to ponder what specifically do I not want to leave undone at the end of my earthly days?  What is urging you on at this moment?  Do you have an ”Oh I could never really do that” secret aspiration?

What is my point, you ask?  My point is simply this – in order to be the proper care and support for others, in the way that you would like; care and support YOU first!  I love this quote in a recent essay by Catherine Collautt, Ph.D. “What about being the most important thing to yourself?”    I challenge you to put YOU at the top of your priority list.  I believe self-preservation, taking care of YOU first is a key of prime importance and a critical element in taking care of others who are important to you.