Have you ever thought of your life as an inbox? When I used to work for the telephone company my email would fill-up almost every day. Often, they were just messages of interest: a company policy, directions for repair of a new product, a list of department phone numbers by state.
But often they represented work that would need to be done by me or the people I worked with.
There were times when my inbox became so full that I couldn’t wade my way through it all. How could my team possibly get all this work done? How could I even really see what needed to be done? It felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders.
I haven’t worked for the telephone company for years, but my “metaphorical” inbox still seems pretty full. Why?
It’s because we let other people set our priorities. It’s because we accept the pressure of friends, family, society, work and community—all to do things that we may not even agree with!
Just because we want to be a “good person,” doesn’t mean that we have to take on the responsibility of the people around us.
It’s time to empty that inbox. It’s time to evaluate the many activities that we’re involved in and decide if they’re really important. It’s time to take a “pass” on the things that don’t have meaning any longer. It’s time to renegotiate the responsibilities that seem overwhelming.
In short, it’s time to look at our personal priorities and make sure our activities are in alignment with them. When we focus on what’s really important to us, God will help clear the way.
Ernest Holmes, the founder of Science of Mind, refers to this as the spiritual Law of Focus:
“To concentrate means to bring to a center, and in Mental Science it means focusing the mental attention on some definite and desired thought, image, idea or thing.”
“We concentrate our attention. The Law creates the form.”
So what’s really important to you? Let’s pull it out of that inbox and give it our undivided focus!