Action Expresses Priorities

I watched a video today that was quite inspiring. The premise was that Nike gave this guy some money to shoot a commercial, tag-lined ‘life is a sport, make it count.’ So what this guy did was grab a buddy, travel around the world, and do as much as possible, go as far as possible, see as much as possible with the sponsor money he received. This lasted him ten days and he documented the entire thing, cut it, edited it, and made a pretty awesome four and a half minute video. Dispersed throughout the video are little sayings and quotations meant to reflect the mood of the video. One of which was “action expresses priorities.” Not surprising this one stuck, given it's a quote from Gandhi.

During the course of a day, there are literally countless actions that we perform. For me, like most people, this begins when my day begins. Whether it’s twenty minutes before Going the Distance from Rocky plays to wake me up, or whether that damn song has been playing thirty second loops for several minutes, I’m immediately pressed with a decision: snooze or get up. More often than not, this decision is simple. Snooze at least once, then it’s back with the decision making. From there it only adds on. Do I want to eat cereal before I shower or just grab a granola bar to eat when I get to the office? Should I bring my workout bag or should is there something I need to get home for? It’s 7:15am, should I hope that the Edens won’t be too bad, or should I back-road it and know that I’m committed to a 50+ minute commute, albeit far less frustrating?

And then I get to work, where my decisions actually matter. Sometimes. So now I’m reading emails and responding to messages while my screen stays filled with more windows than that person who shouldn’t throw rocks. And now I’m letting one conversation lead into another at a different cube when I walked away with a short-minded, immediate answer intention.

This surface-level explanation is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the amount of decisions that we make on a daily, hourly, even minutely basis. And I guess it seems kind of obvious that the actions you take, the decisions you make, the options you choose, would represent your priorities. But I wouldn’t say that’s the most common belief.

I think people, including myself, will try to justify their actions with excuses when it doesn’t mesh with their preconceived notions about their own priorities. So if you were thinking about meeting up with a friend to catch up, and when the time comes, you fall back on something like ‘I’m too tired,’ or ‘I’m trying to save money,’ or any other non-emergency excuse, you can sit in your apartment all day believing ‘oh I really did want to meet them, but it’s Tuesday, and I have so much work to do tomorrow, it just would have been silly,’ but the reality is you chose something else because that thing is more important.

This concept can be a bit complicated when it comes to work. For example, I might not always choose the highest priority when it comes to the work on my desk. Some of the projects that I work on are long-term, while the rest are relatively immediate. So if I have a couple projects that have been going on for a month or two and are only 50% complete, but I have a dozen or so tiny projects that pop up and only take an hour or two, there’s a much higher percentage that I’ll choose those small projects. At the end of the day, it’s just nice to get something accomplished. If the two projects I’m choosing between differ by 100 hours in ‘amount of time left to complete,’ it’s really challenging to keep that big fish on your plate. With a fish that size, there’s no room for side dishes. So what I’m basically choosing is selfish. I’m choosing to feel a sense of accomplishment, to make a few people really happy (with such a fast turn-around time) while constantly pushing off people that will understand (well this is a big project, a few setbacks were expected).

This concept appears less complicated when it comes to personal life. Every time you talk to someone, every time you make plans with someone, every time you tell somebody no you’re showing your hand. Sure, there might be some underlying reasons, if, say, you have a crush and you’re being shy, but most of the time, the priority is clear.

You make exceptions for the people that are a priority in your life. You make excuses for the people that aren’t.

Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous

The glitz, the glam, the bright lights, the people knowing who you are, the VIP treatment at a club, the everything that comes with being famous, it’s the American Dream. It’s who we aspire to resemble, who we reenact with our friends. It’s a life that we’ve all daydreamed about. And not just the ‘no longer in debt, what the hell are student loans, never clipping a coupon’ type life that would be an amazing asset to almost anyone in their 20s, but really the red carpet type shit. Like, when I see a celebrity has recently become single, I could actually conceive meeting that person in real life. Unlike now when that thought lasts about two moments of laughable longing.

Why do I bring this up? It wasn’t just to remind us all that we are not, in fact, rich and famous. It’s because of an article in GQ about DerrickRose. You should leave this site to go read it, but in case you don’t, Rose is a quiet kid that loves Chicago. He loves the streets, he loves walking around and enjoying a nice day. I’m sure he loves the view from his 84^th floor condo in the Trump. But the higher he ascends up the ‘no-matter-where-you-go-someone-will-recognize-you’ charts, he can’t, well, go anywhere in Chicago without someone recognizing him. He said he feels naked when he doesn’t wear a hat. His life in his new, relatively empty condo that he shares with two friends is more times than not all he's able to enjoy. His moments of solitude are sparse at best. As someone who shies away from the spotlight and differs to his teammates and the team in general, Rose wasn’t really cut out for the life of a superstar. Physically, of course, but not mentally or emotionally. His favorite thing in the world is to win at basketball, but the irony is, the more he does his favorite thing, the more his least favorite thing shines: the bright lights of the rest of the world.

Now, it’s hard to say how you would feel about something until you were able to live in. And if the fame came along with boat loads of money, and I could use that money to help all those around me, and charities, and organizations, and anything else that I could think of, the positives would outweigh the negatives, surely. And as a self-proclaimed masochist, I guess it would suit my lifestyle to make sacrifices for the benefit of others.

But take a step back and think about not being able to walk around the block without being noticed, talked to, hands shaken, autographs asked for, swarmed, mobbed, suffocated. Think about just wanting to grab a beer at a bar. Think about doing a little shopping. Clothes. Groceries. ‘Oh, well if you’re that high up, people will do all of that for you. You can just rent out a bar. Make people shop for you.’ Sure, there are some alternatives. But actually think about it. Would you sacrifice all the little ingredients of your life, all of the nuances and day to days, all the details of your current life, for that?

Rose is able to find his peace on the court. His sport, the game he works at relentlessly, he can get lost in it. But assuming my claim to fame isn’t as a major athlete, I couldn’t fathom it. People might not have any sympathy for the elite of the world that make more money in a day that I make in a year. And I can understand how. And I would guess a good percentage of that elite crowd relishes the chance to be known by millions. A guy like Lebron James basks in the love and adoration of everyday people.  But Lebron James doesn’t live 30 minutes from where he grew up, in a city that he bleeds for, a city he’s known his entire life.

Derrick Rose is way more Chicago than anyone reading this. He’s only spent two semesters of college away. If he wasn’t able to walk the streets of Portland because they had the #1 pick in 2008, I don’t think he’d be as passionate as he seemed in the GQ article. If he still had the option to go home and escape a least a little bit of the spotlight, it would be a relief. But the rise to super-stardom has come at such a great cost, it’s a side of sports and entertainment that gets quickly overlooked.

I can’t tell you how I would be as a celebrity. It’d be cool to think I could play both roles, embracing the fame but staying grounded in my previous realities. Truth is, I have no idea the person I would become. I’m sure the circumstances of my rise would play a role, but if the switch was flicked tomorrow, and I could no longer walk to a restaurant without being recognized, if I spent the majority of my free time restricted to and confined by my own walls, I’d have to seriously consider whether the limelight is worth it.