Intentional Choices
“And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’”
When I sit down with people, more often than not, the conversation comes around to frustration that life has gotten away from them. So many people feel spread so thin that life itself seems to have taken on a life of its own. We want to scream because we do not have the time to do what we feel called to do. We feel guilt over not having enough time for our children, our spouse, or even God.
Greg McKeown writes an article in the Harvard Business Review entitled “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.” McKeown affirms that only by doing less can we do more. He calls it “the clarity paradox.” McKeown quotes from the book How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins, who says, “one of the key reasons for these failures was that companies fell into ‘the undisciplined pursuit of more.’ It is true for companies and it is true for careers.” I would argue that it is true of our entire life, including our spiritual life.
McKeown encourages the reader to unlock their lives by doing the following three things. “Get started by: Conducting a life audit.” Until you set priorities, you will be forced to say “yes” to everything because everything will seem to have the same value. Second, you focus on “Eliminating an old activity before you add a new one.” I have chosen not to play my guitar regularly because I need to focus on taking that hour for daily exercise. I cannot do both without ignoring my wife, and I am not willing to sacrifice my time with her any more than I already do.
The third issue is “the endowment effect,… [which] refers to our tendency to value an item more once we own it.” We own so much. We pay for several streaming services, so we need to watch them. We pay for a gym membership, so we’d better use it. We pay for that music membership, so we’d better listen to it. I wish people felt the same way about their church pledge (just joking).
I pray we will consider these three recommendations and how we can take back our lives. There is no better time than Holy Week to reflect on our lives and what God desires from us. There should be time in our lives for work, family, and faith. Too many other things have taken over, and we’ve lost our way. Pray for God’s Spirit to guide our decision-making so we will appreciate having more by possessing less.
