A new roof, a new morning, and the importance paradigm
We recently had a new roof installed. You know you are well into the depths of adulthood when a new roof becomes your focus. We saved for it. We eventually found a great company (with one not-so-great detour). We used a wonderful product which will likely outlive us. And now we have a new roof. The good news is I love it...most of the time.
As it turns out, the roof (and our new exterior paint for that matter) looks different depending on the lighting. When referring to our paint color, “Nevermore Gray,” most people say, “I love the BLUE color on your house!” (Under my breath...it’s nevermore gray.) The paint is bluish gray, and the shake roof is brown – unless it’s really sunny and then it has a red undertone. While discussing the color variations with my dad, I told him our west-facing house looks best in the morning.
His response was, “Most things look better in the morning light.”
As a 30-year educator/administrator, I have had my share of high-stress, high-drama situations with students, families, colleagues, board members, and community supporters. I’ve lost sleep, lost my temper, and lost friends. But none of those things kept me from getting up the next morning and doing it all over again. There’s something about the morning that is refreshing and hopeful.
Because of that, when we are able, we should refrain from reacting when emotions and stress are at their peak. Particularly at the end of the day, we should be mindful of our fatigue, stress, and impatience. Even at our best, we often mistake the important for the urgent.
I love Stephen Covey’s paradigm of the urgent/not urgent and important/not important. He claims most people operate from an urgency paradigm or an importance paradigm. Sometimes an urgency paradigm can be somewhat extreme. He describes the “urgency addiction” as follows:
Some of us get so used to the adrenaline rush of handling crises that we become dependent on it for a sense of excitement and energy. How does urgency feel? Stressful? Pressured? Tense? Exhausting? Sure. But let’s be honest. It’s also sometimes exhilarating. We feel useful. We feel successful. We feel validated. And we get good at it...We get a temporary high from solving urgent and important crises. Then when the importance isn’t there, the urgency fix is so powerful, we are drawn to do anything urgent, just to stay in motion. People expect us to be busy, overworked. It’s become a status symbol in our society – if we’re busy, we’re important; if we’re not busy, we’re almost embarrassed to admit it. Busyness is where we get our security. It’s validating, popular, and pleasing. It’s also a good excuse for not dealing with the first things in our lives. (First Things First, pgs. 33 and 35)
Not everyone has an urgency addition; however, people often treat the important as if they are urgent. Of course, some important tasks are urgent – a crisis certainly fits that definition. We have deadlines and meetings that fall into that category.
At the same time, many tasks are important but not urgent. When you treat the important as urgent (when it really isn’t), you run the risk of missing out on an opportunity to thoughtfully and deliberately respond or plan or prevent an issue. That important task seeming urgent is a temptation to hurry, make mistakes, hurt feelings, and make an important situation worse. We need to learn to distinguish the important/urgent from the important/not urgent.
Motivational speaker William Arthur Ward encourages, “Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you quit, try.” The Book of Proverbs offers similar wisdom: “Careful words make for a careful life; careless talk may ruin everything.” (Proverbs 13:3, The Message translation)
As each day progresses, our energy is depleted, our patience is thinner, our words are looser, and our mental and emotional acuity is dulled. A task takes longer at the end of the day. So write that email, draft that proposal, or revise that timeline – but wait, and in the morning – reread, make edits, and hit “send.” You will be fresh, rested, and ready. (There have been many mornings where I reread an email from the prior day and was so very grateful I did not hit send!)
Morning light makes the mountains and the valleys look different. Last summer, we spent a few days in Tuscany. We woke up to the most beautiful valley I could imagine. The sunsets were beautiful, but they still did not compare to the morning light on the dew-covered vineyards and lavender bushes. Utterly breathtaking.
As you break the urgency habit, live more in the importance paradigm, where “we spend more time in preparation, prevention, planning, and empowerment, we decrease the amount of time we spend putting out fires...Most of the time, we are there by choice rather than by default.” (First Things First, pgs. 39-40). When you operate from the importance paradigm, your work experience will be more meaningful, purposeful, and fulfilling, giving you confidence and peace.
Slow down. Learn to discern the urgent and the important. Walk away at the end of the day, and take another look in the morning. It will look different. Most things look better in the morning light.
pc: Dawid Zawila via Unsplash
