What Matters Most?

All of us in Tucson have been affected by the recent shooting. One of my colleagues really captured a way to reflect on this tragedy in the following article, so I’m passing it along for your consideration. — Terry

What Matters Most?
By Kay Prince

Of course, the recent shooting in Tucson offers an opportunity to reconsider, to evaluate what’s happening in our world and to consider what actions can create positive change locally, regionally and nationally at many other levels.

This event and the events that have followed also create another possibility – a very personal one. A chance to consider the tragedy as a catalyst to contemplating how you are living your life. It’s times like these that people experience a wakeup call. They stop. They take a look at themselves and their lives.

Respectfully, I offer some questions for your contemplation and review. I invite you to take time, to consider, to examine your life through these nine questions.

1. What’s most important to you in living your life?
2. How can you make more of a positive impact with your family, your close circle of friends, your workplace?
3. What are the values and guiding principles that you hold most dear, that drive you, that you wish to pass on to your children and those closest to you?
4. Do you have a sense of meaning in your life? Do you know what your life purpose is?
5. Is the statement “life is short” more of a reality to you now? Is it time to look at the rest of your life and be more aware of how you want to live it?
6. Are you living your life to the fullest? Are there certain talents, passions, personal causes that have been brushed aside and are longing to be expressed?
7. What will bring you true, sustainable satisfaction, in your relationships, your work, your life?
8. Is it time for you to explore options to make a greater contribution and impact?
9. What or who matters most to you in your life? Are you making that a top priority?

Have the urge to sell all your earthly belongings and join the Peace Corps? That’s not what this exercise is all about. Every single day in your life, in your family, in your work, you have a choice to live in a way that is true to yourself, true to who you are and what you stand for.

If each of us lived with these questions in mind at all times, think of what the difference would be.

Note: Kay Prince can be reached at kay@kprinceco.com.