On Choices, Priorities, and Consequences

As my children were growing up, I told them frequently, “You have to make choices in life.” When my daughter wanted to play two sports, I told her she had to choose one sport per season, because I didn’t have time to cart her to more than one set of practices. She still blames me for not letting her play soccer. But she was the one who chose volleyball over soccer.

I also tried to get the kids to understand that not making a choice was making a choice. Sometimes not choosing was a good choice, but often it was not. When my son couldn’t decide which college to attend, I helped him review what he liked about each option, but told him, “The choice is yours. Make it.” Ultimately, he did, but it took until the last day.

I also stressed to my children the importance of knowing one’s priorities. Good choices are easier to make if one knows what’s most important in one’s life. We each have different priorities, which is why we all make different choices.

And I told my kids that choices have consequences. Once a choice is made, it opens some possibilities and closes others. I think that’s why my son had trouble making choices—he didn’t want to forestall any of his options. He liked dreaming about them all. But that isn’t how life works. We make choices, good and bad, knowing what we know, and sometimes not knowing what we don’t know. We make the best choices we can, and we live with the consequences.

I have recently made some choices about my life that I hope move me in the direction I want my life to go. I mentioned my long-term goals in a recent post, and I posted a year ago about where I saw myself at age 80. These goals, then, are some of my priorities. Over the past few months, I’ve looked at how I spend my time, and I realized I should re-focus on my priorities. And so I have made some changes.

The biggest change was that as of this month, I moved to inactive status with The Missouri Bar, the organization that licenses attorneys to practice law in Missouri. I’ve been a member of The Missouri Bar for forty years, though I only practiced full-time from 1979 until 1996—less than half the time I have been a bar member. I used my legal knowledge throughout my corporate career, and I used it as a mediator after I retired. But over the last year or so I have concluded that mediation is not where I want to spend my time in the future, and I know I am very unlikely to ever return to practicing law full-time. So, to save most of the annual bar membership fee and to save the time required for annual Continuing Legal Education hours (which I have dutifully maintained since the requirement was adopted in the mid-1980s), I decided to move to inactive status.

This was a really hard decision for me. Being a lawyer is part of who I am, part of my educational and professional identity. Even though I’ve done little with my law degree for many years, I still think of myself as an attorney. And I always will, whether I am authorized to practice law or not.

Moreover, although there is no requirement that mediators be attorneys, I also concluded that if I went inactive and dropped my ability to hold myself out as a practicing lawyer, I would stop mediating. And so I have.

These changes were in service of my desire to write.

In addition, in order to free up more time for writing, I have also dropped board and committee work for a couple of deserving non-profit organizations. I enjoyed these organizations, I miss being a part of these groups, and I still support their missions. But I felt I had served my time and I was growing stale in what I could contribute. I’ve continued with a couple of other non-profit boards, though I may winnow my portfolio even further in the next few years as my terms expire.

Or I might decide to work with another organization or two. If their purposes and the time they require fit my life when the opportunities arise.

Priorities. Choices.

And consequences.

I have tried to focus my life so I have time to write and to promote my writing. There are some other personal and family reasons why I have chosen to reduce my commitments, but my primary motivator has been to reserve time for writing.

Will my choices work to help me reach my long-term goals? I don’t know. But I know I must continue to shape my life proactively. If I don’t make the choices, other people and circumstances will choose for me.

What choices have you made to shape your life?