A few days I ago, I touched on how wisdom lies in the ability to ‘see the difference.’  And one of the distinctions to pay attention to, is the difference between what’s important and what’s unimportant.

This is so fundamental and crucial, yet often most easily neglected.  As a result, we get caught up with a frenzy of activities that call for our attention, and ended up with being busy without necessarily being effective. I’m often guilty of doing that too, like checking my emails and updating Facebook frequently when I could have channelled those time and energy to writing, blogging or connecting with people  whom matter most to me (like you boys).

Also, sometimes, even when we KNOW what’s important, we don’t necessarily DO anything about it. We slack off, and pretend that it’s OK. Take health for instance. Everyone knows that regular exercise is good for health, but few make time to exercise … even if it is as simple as taking a brisk walk or using the staircase instead of the elevator.  How absurd?

What gets in the way or causes the gap between knowing and doing?  I suspect the culprit is that we don’t actually know enough of the cost of non-doing, because the effect is usually felt or experienced only further down the road.  People don’t fall sick because of the lack of exercise for one day.  But the prolonged habit of passivity can lead to a decline in the immune system, and makes us more susceptible to fall victim to virus attack.

An Important Reminder

Once you begin to examine carefully the cost of not doing something about what’s important, it will become obvious to you that there is absolutely nothing more important than knowing what’s important and doing something about it.

With that insight in mind, try starting your day by naming the 3 important things that you will attend to that day, and make sure you do something about them all by end of day. I am pretty convinced that developing the discipline of bridging the gap between knowing and doing will bring you some extraordinary success in life.

Love,

Your Insightful Dad