The longer we live, the more stuff – literally and figuratively – we drag along with us.

Career, family, regrets, achievements, friends, dreams, conflicts, promises, goals – all of these take up the valuable – and limited – real estate inside our heads.

It’s a continual fight to maintain some semblance of balance, and proportion, to these competing priorities. And, it’s a never-ending struggle to keep what we truly value at the very top of the list.

If one isn’t careful, it’s easy to be totally overwhelmed by the overabundance of choice. Paralysis by Analysis is a very real consequence of too many competing priorities, and too little time or resources or – simply too little you – to address.

We are not machines. We can’t simply turn off our needs, wants, and emotions at the flip of a switch.

But we always have choice over our own actions, over our power to decide.

The beginning of exercising real control over what is important in our lives begins with where we spend our time, talents, and treasure. We may say we value one thing over another; but we show what we truly value, by our actions; by what we do.

When I am overwhelmed, I sit in a quiet place. I think about where I want to be, and the steps that need to happen, in order, to get me to that place.

I decide on what needs to happen, first, and I make a decision. Then I consider the next action that follows as a consequence of that decision, and decide what needs to occur after that.

Soon, I’ve constructed an entire decision matrix – sometimes on paper, or sometimes, just in my head – that determines what needs to be worried over – and what doesn’t.

Anything that can’t be solved today, isn’t given the headspace to take away from today, what needs to be done today.

Another way this might be better said: Don’t borrow trouble from Tomorrow.

Go, and be you.