Want a New Year of necessity, pleasure or significance?
December 27th, 2012 by Agent Kevin Miller
For the next six days, variations of offering ‘Happy New Year!’ will be passed around somewhere around a billion times. It’s a simple well-wish and nice gesture. But words matter. We rise or fall by them and the meaning behind them.
So with our thought and intent subconsciously bent on having a ‘happy’ New Year and hopes for a happier year than the last, is it really what we want?
Happiness is primarily a momentary feeling. A grand feeling! But momentary and generally based on our immediately present circumstances. The masses of our culture are primarily focused on this momentary happiness. Life is generally separated between:
1. Activities of Absolute Necessity
2. Activities of Momentary Pleasure
Only a small percentage is generally devoted to:
3. Activities of Long-term Significance
Examples of Absolute Necessity
- Personal hygiene – we brush and shower and shave
- Work – for most, there is little meaning in work other than making a buck and giving us a vocational label and possibly some status
- House keeping – laundry, dishes, vacuuming
- Maintenance – from homes to cars to groceries
- Family – facilitating school, activities and so much more
Examples of Momentary Pleasure
- Eating junk food – anything primarily taken in for taste only, with little nutritional value and possibly even harming us
- Mindless media – watching and listening and reading just for entertainment. Measure this by discerning what redemptive, lasting benefit you received from the time, or did it merely ‘pass’ the time?
- Non-necessity shopping – just buying for buyings sake
- Talking about people – whether celebrities, co-workers, family… (“Great people talk about ideas. Average people talk about things. Small people talk about other people.”)
Examples of Long-term Significance
- True rest – not filled with media or merely sleep, but clearing the mind and seeking peace
- Serving others from your unique giftings – not just doing anything, but serving in a way that is unique to what you specifically have to offer
- Working toward personal change – not just reading, listening and watching, but having pen in hand or fingers on keyboard and applying it to yourself and committing to new actions, activities and behaviors and thus…a better reality
- Radical, irreversible actions – quitting a job, moving cross country, making a large investment
You can make your own lists according to where you see your personal necessities, pleasures and significance. These are just a quick smattering of examples.
Think about the past year. The days, weeks, months…the whole year. Is it fair to bet most of your time, possibly ALL OF YOUR TIME, was spent on Necessities and Pleasures? And very little was spent on Significance?
The bad news? You’re not alone. You’re in good company. Yeah…that’s bad news.
The good news? You can be in GREAT company and drastically alter your life if you’ll simply increase the time you spend on Activities of Significance by 5%. You don’t have to be brilliant. You don’t really even need to be that smart (I can personally testify to this). You just have to devote consistant time and effort to it.
IMPORTANT: The necessities of your life and entitled yearnings of your flesh will not let up. Make an effort toward Significance and they will actually seem to increase!
You decide which wins. Circumstance…or Conviction.
So here’s wishing you, a Significant New Year!
If you’d rather hear the show where I expanded on this topic:Right-click to download / Listen or subscribe via iTunes
