Order of Importance

Prioritizing is a pretty important part of life, especially if you tend to live at a hectic pace where you often don't have enough time to finish everything on your to-do list, on any given day.

Personally, I find it very challenging to not become overwhelmed when I know I have more that needs to be done than I have time for... and the process of deciding on my order of importance is essentially not about choosing what I will succeed at, but what I am willing to fail at... due to lack of time.

Our days, after all, are only so long.

There is much wisdom out there to suggest that we are "better off than ever" because of the wealth of things we have today, that we did not have, even 25-30 years ago.

I'm not sure how much I can agree with such assertions... mostly because I want to aske the question whether anyone actually wants all those things we are being told are the "benefits" of modern life.

I consider — for example — how someone recently insisted that we are so much better off because back in 1982 (when I was at University) all we had was a single simple phone that plugged into the wall... and that was that. My TV came in via an antenna on the roof; I could pick up about 13 channels.

I'll put a bookmark in that and say that by the same token, "all I had" was a single monthly phone bill for the princely amount of $19.95, from Southwestern Bell.

Sure, maybe I am better off with my smart phones and streaming on-demand movies and 600-channel cable TV... but let's also consider that my monthly Internet bill is $106; my mobile bill is $87, my cable bill is $67 and my fixed land line is $80, for a total of $340 a month.

So, sure I have all this extra stuff, but it's costing me seventeen times the cost of my communications/entertainment... and that's a lot more than simple inflation.

Point being that "better off" is not really a comparable thing... because everything comes at a cost, and we must look at the relative cost.

My 1982 bills required about two hours of work at wages of the time, while my 2026 bills require twelve hours of work.

So what does "better off" really look like? I suppose it's a matter of priorities.

Which brings us back to the title of this post, and the dilemma that many now face: We can't actually get everything done because there are not enough hours in the day. Because twelve hours instead of two hours of work for the comparable services.

It's just something to think about...

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great week ahead!

How about YOU? Do you think you are better off than you used to be? Does the amount of "better off" offset the additional work needed to have it? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2026.01.19 00:41 PST
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