Priorities Clarify Options

It’s been over a month since posting an update on this blog.

We’ve been blasting through country after country in Europe during that time: France, Switzerland, Italy (Tuscany and Rome), Norway, and now Northern Ireland. We’ve been busy beavers.

And the blog has been a casualty of that busyness.

I don’t want to reflect on each place we’ve been. Not in the mood.

I am more contemplative than that at the moment. There are a couple of thoughts I’ve been mulling over recently and I will start with the best one. Might not get to the second one but we’ll see.

Here’s the best thought.

Being impulsive is not following God. In fact, impulsivity can be a hindrance to following God if it means neglecting biblical wisdom in the process.

Impulsivity on its own is not wrong. Obviously, the tendency to follow your emotions as a guide can lead to bad decision every now and again, probably more than every now and again, but acting on impulse isn’t exactly sin. I feel the urge to go for a walk and then I get outside. Sounds fine to me. I feel the urge to make a nice meal. I make one. All good. Still on track. I feel other urges that are not walking and cooking urges and decide to act on them…well…then…okay, maybe not so good.

But impulsivity is not wrong on its own.

I can be impulsive, just like the next guy, and mostly it’s fine since I’m endowed with a measure of practicality. I tend to overthink things so a little impulsivity can actually be okay for me.

But this trip is helping shed a ton of light on how I make decisions and some habits I have are not great.

The one stupid habit I have is asking myself, “Will I regret it in the future if I don’t do ____?” This question’s been a faithful guide for me for years but now I’m seeing that it’s a bit less reliable than I initially thought it was. When you’re travelling the world for a year, seeing amazing site after amazing site, and having an embarrassment of wealth when it comes to opportunities to see and do new things, the old “will I regret” wisdom starts to twist the mind into knots.

Here’s how it works. I think something cool, like going to see a volcano. Volcanoes are cool. They shoot molten lava out and are orange and smoky. That’s so cool. I want to see one! I’m travelling the world for a year so I certainly can do that. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t do that. So, I look into how to make that work, reach out to potential accommodations, budget the costs, think about a rental vehicle, and all that stuff. Soon I see whether I can do it or not, and there’s where the trouble begins.

After I see what it will cost me, I have to decide whether it’s worth it – compared to a thousand other “will I regret” scenarios.

In normal life, I decide on normal stuff. Do I want to spend two weeks of vacation going somewhere and then I can choose yes or no and, if yes, where. One time slot. One location. One budget with one set of questions. Easy.

In a yearlong mega-adventure, the possibilities multiple like gremlins in water and I have to decide between ten different amazing things that come to mind, pretending they are all for the same timeslot, and then decide on which is the most “will I regrettable” so I do that one. I choose that one, eventually, and then we have a winner.

And then a new idea pops into my mind, dethrones the winner, and starts the whole process again.

The ugly thing happens in the unseen corners of the mind. It’s pretty ugly but really hard to spot when you’re in the midst of the decision-making process.

The ugly fact is that other priorities that are usually obvious, like protecting the family, honouring my wife, and maintaining a financially-disciplined life, can be submerged under the all-powerful question of “will I regret” such and such.

It should be plain enough on the face of it too that “I” is the real problem, since the question revolves around my inner desires and what I may or may not regret in the future. Who the hell am I that my personal regrets would be the governing principle of my family’s life at any given time. It’s entirely self-centered – and that’s hard to spot in the moment.

I have had to make some hard decisions about where we are going to be this year because my wife and my children and our financial future are actually more important than me seeing a lion. Iran is at war with the U.S. and Israel. Maybe taking the kids there right now is not the wisest decision. That should be obvious but, I confess, it was not. The cost of travel to Tanzania and to book a safari became way outside of our budget after numerous emergencies and a job loss, so why was it so hard for me to take that idea off the table?

Because the “will I regret” monster got a hold of my larger priorities.

What a strange realization, especially for a Christian. One of my governing beliefs for many years was completely unbiblical.

Over the past weeks and months, I have been recalibrating by asking other simpler questions like, “Can we afford ____?” “Is ____ safe and profitable for my children?” and “Is it honouring to my wife to travel to ____?” There are questions of elimination. If an idea is not something we can afford, i.e. it would put us into debt, then we cannot do it. If a travel plan would endanger my kids physically or emotionally (kids’ emotional needs are different when they are away from home for a year by the way), then that plan must be cancelled. If my strong desire to take my family to Tel Aviv would not honour my wife, perhaps I will see Tel Aviv another time.

Priorities clarify options.

And, like Forest Gump, that’s all I have to say about that.

Dawson