PRIORITY LIST: WHERE TO START?

Priority list? Maybe you call it something else.

What if it’s a list someone makes for you?

From wife: Honey Do.

At work: To Do.

Your friends: How do you do?

But this is your list. What happens if urgency doesn’t feel like a priority?

That might be called ‘growing up,’ which is supposed to be one of the benefits of education.

You learn things as you go, hopefully before you get too old for it to matter.

But where does the list start? Here it is:

The number one, #1, at the top of any priority list, is learning how to get along well with others.

I know, it sounds simple, and you’re thinking, ‘I’m wasting more time on some loser baby boomer blog telling me what I already know.’

Did you know that boomers are the most ‘get along’ people you’ll ever meet?

The reason is in the name ‘Baby Boom.’

I know families that had four or five kids in them. They had to get along in houses built before second bathrooms became fashionable.

My Grandma said she grew up with six brothers and sisters in a one bathroom neighborhood house.

I mention neighborhood because my Grandpa on the other side comes from a family of ten kids who lived more in the country.

The same Grandpa dug outhouses until the day he died. Indoor plumbing was not a priority.

My grandparents are of the WWII generation, the greatest generation, and grew up in huge families.

How did their dad’s maintain order?

If they did it with a heavy hand, and passed it down, boomers may be the last generation to get a good old fashioned beating.

 

Getting Along With Others

Old people and little kids are so cute because they get a pass when they say something offensive to, or about, others.

Why? Because they can shit-talk all day without a worry of them acting out.

Responsible people understand that kids usually grow up and grow out of frivolous attention seeking statements.

Old people talk it up and we blame ‘the times’ they grew up in.

The problems start with everyone in between ‘too young to know better’ and ‘too old to give a damn.’

With so many opinions on what doing the right thing is, the optimist says it’s hard to go wrong with a good person.

A self-proclaimed good person has the baggage of social expectations: What makes them so good?

Who needs to hear all about the troubled past of another good person?

Even if they’re just a good person, there’s always some pecker willing to invent a troubled past for them.

Then they get defensive and mean, like Sean Penn.

If getting along with others means anything, it means leaving people better for knowing you.

Or maybe that’s just a blogger’s dream, than and unlimited travel.

Writers always dream of unlimited travel while they write in one place.

No dream in the writing means no dream in the reading.

Call it priority writing.

 

Where Is Marriage On The Priority List

If getting along with others is at the top of the list, marriage is included.

Is there a bigger challenge?

The messaging in marriage is tricky.

Mean what you say and say what you mean? That’s just making trouble for yourself.

Instead, communication in marriage needs to be like the Enigma Machine.

The fun is in figuring out what the other person said, not the actual message, because what else is there besides do laundry, take out garbage, cook food, clean up.

Call me romantic.

As long as you’re guided by the basics listed above, you’ll be fine.

Set a good example by keeping a tidy common area.

(Whose crap is this? Mine? Oh, right.)

 

So Confusing? Too Confusing?

Single guys get it right easier than married guys.

I blame different rankings on the priority lists.

Some marginal screw-up is fine compared to a major screw-up, and not everyone can tell the differences.

Marginal screw meets a woman out of his league and wonders how to get closer.

Major screw meets someone out of their league and barges right in to ruin any hope for meaningful connection, which knocks the woman down a few pegs until she sees marginal screw as a work in progress and not the big loser major screw was.

So they get together, but do they last?

They will if they put each other at the top of their priority lists in such a way as to make the other believe it means everything they ever hoped it would.

Follow me for more romantic advice.