Progress

I realized the other day that the way I measure progress has changed considerably over the last few years. Seven or eight years ago I measured progress in a way that most people, generally speaking, would agree with. I had any number of goals towards which I worked, and when I reach one of those goals, I called that progress.

Lately, I've been making a different kind of progress. It's so different that a few short years ago I wouldn't have considered this progress at all. I'd have been depressed, anxious, worried, and perhaps just plain pissed off at the world and myself for my lack of progress--for doing the same things that I now call progress.

I have been making a lot of what I call progress lately, not by reaching a bunch of goals, but instead by deciding on a bunch of goals that aren't important enough to be reached. I've cut down my lists of "have to"s and "want to"s to a very small percentage of what they used to be. This hasn't caused me to reach any more of my goals than before. What it HAS caused me to do is eliminate all the stupid ones so that I don't waste my time on them.

There are some things that are important in life, and other things that are not. We should go to great lengths to spend as much energy as possible on those things that ARE actually important, and as little energy as possible on those that are not. Progress doesn't have to always be "succeeding" at something on your list of priorities. Progress can be cutting your list down to those things that matter and affect your life most.