Priorities are a way to set guideposts for a life well-lived.
That’s well-lived personally defined. Writing is my declared priority; therefore, I had better be writing no matter the kind of life I’m having. Yet it is sometimes difficult to live up to that declared priority. I make writing a daily practice, yes, but (See that “but” there?) work, family, travel, relationships, and so on. That “but” represents a big problem, the problem of responsibilities getting in the way of my priorities.
Responsibilities and priorities are not the same thing, though there is obvious overlap. Everyone has responsibilities, and many of those are not ours to define. We trade certain types of freedom for certain types of rewards, like jobs to support our families, or vet and sitter bills for the love of an animal companion. Within the parameters of our responsibilities, which once chosen—like choosing marriage, having a child, or adopting an animal—shape our lives, we get to set our priorities. Work and family are two of those overlap areas, responsibilities and priorities both. There are also, outside the zone of overlap, the priorities we get to set for ourselves. No one else gets to make demands in these zones. One of my main personal priorities is, and has always been, to write.
I have a lifelong compulsion to write down stories. I love everything about it. I couldn’t not do it if I tried—not for long anyway, not without making myself sick.
To write or not to write?
I couldn’t not do it
if I tried—
not for long anyway,
not without making myself sick.
When we set a personal priority and don’t make time for it, we fail to live a life true to ourselves. This happens often in areas of personal wellness and growth. How many times do we let our workout or meditation practice slide because work or family get demanding? Despite knowing these things are good for our health and sanity, they slip out of our grasps and off our calendars. When our priority is set to “Write” or “Finish that novel,” it can be even harder to hang onto. Try telling our boss or spouse, “Writing time is good for my health and sanity.” So we put our priorities and our writing on hold for the sake of our responsibilities.
The thing is, writing is good for our health and sanity.
Maybe writing isn’t good for everyone’s health and sanity, but for us writers who can’t keep all those stories racing through our heads inside, who get excited crossing the threshold of a stationery shop, who would rather sit down with a notebook than watch a movie, we need this in our lives. After college, I worked office hours at my first real job, and I also worked two evenings and both weekend days at a coffeeshop. I was exhausted. Sometimes I’d get home from the office and fall asleep on my couch, only to wake up in the middle of the night, eat something, and go back to bed. I didn’t write during that time, because I had no energy for it. Later, when I became a mother, I told people I was going to wait six months or a year to start writing again, because I wanted to be fully present to my baby. I learned from these times in my life that if I’m not writing, I develop a kind of restless angst. After my baby was born, I was writing again in three weeks. That was a good thing for both of us.
Whenever I start feeling like I’m getting too busy to write, I think about Toni Morrison. I remember seeing her on Oprah back in the day. She described sitting at her kitchen table with a baby in her arms, a yellow legal pad in front of her with spit up on it, a pen in her hand.
She wrote.
Life was messy, demanding, stressful.
She wrote.
Toni Morrison
I decided to write down
what I thought if I didn’t do I’d die.
I wasn’t able to find the full interview and confirm the accuracy of my memory, but I did find this on the Oprah Winfrey website:
In 1996, Beloved author and Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison revealed to Oprah the turning point on her journey to becoming a legendary writer. “I decided to write down…what I thought if I didn’t do I’d die. And there were two things, only two…one, mother my children; two, write books.”
With that kind of clarity, nothing else matters.
I am not advocating for writing to the exclusion of our responsibilities. There is a Buddhist parable: An aspirant sat at the feet of the master and asked, “Oh Master, what did you do before you attained enlightenment?” The Master replied, “Chop wood. Carry water.” “Oh Master,” the aspirant continued, “what do you do now that you’ve attained enlightenment?” The Master replied, “Chop wood. Carry water.” Attaining enlightenment is a process. Excepting Divine Grace, it’s a long one, too. The point of the story is that while on the journey to mastery, the Master took care of business. And after becoming the Master, she continued to take care of business. Becoming a writer is a long journey with much to learn, much to practice, and then there’s the matter of getting your work out there in the world. And we have to take care of business.
With clarity about our priorities, we get to know absolutely how we should be spending our time outside of chopping wood and carrying water in order to live a life well-lived. A life that we’ve defined for ourselves according to our most precious goal, the thing we must do or die.
If writing is not a do or die priority, we can still be a writer whenever we have the time. But if we, like me and Toni Morrison, have an undeniable compulsion to write, then write.
Write come what may. Spit up on the legal pad…write. Care-taking a loved one…write. Moving cross country…write. And remember, writing demands consistency, but not perfection. By taking care of our priorities, we will better fulfill our responsibilities. When life interrupts writing, get back to it before the restless angst sets in. That’s all.
Write.
Write.
Write.
