Life’s Little Urgencies
Merriam Webster’s definition of ‘urgent’ is calling for immediate attention; conveying a sense of urgency. A synonym for urgent is ‘importunate’ which means overly persistent in request or demand; troublesomely urgent.
Troublesomely urgent. Overly persistent in request or demand. You can feel the annoyance tingle under your skin just from reading that definition. It makes me think of all the times I’ve said I’ve just got to take care of this little annoying thing first. Or the many things that require my immediate, time-sensitive attention. Before I feel like I can get to the important things.
And that’s exactly how it goes. There are always the urgent things that need to be taken care of as soon as possible. Things that you can’t ignore, even if you’d like to. Many of them are simply importunate things that need to be addressed today. Because they are time sensitive, and if you don’t get to it, who will? And then who else will you let down when you miss? These urgencies don’t care about what important thing you’d prefer to be working on instead.
Every day we place the things that are important to us on hold, so that we can address the little, importunate urgencies in our lives. The little things that add up to a lot of time spent. Time usually spent on things that matter, but probably weren’t a direct reflection of what we value most. Sometimes the things that we care most about are the things we need to set aside for the daily grind of whatever needs to be done.
Important is defined as marked by or indicative of significant worth or consequence; valuable in content or relationship. But the important things rarely operate on the same timelines as the importunate. So we treat what’s important to us like it can wait. Because something urgent always comes up to pull our attention. We assume that there will always be tomorrow, and most of the time there is. Unless it’s one of those times where a tomorrow never comes.
We’re late to a performance we promised we’d be on time for because there was never a good time to set down work that day. We hope it matters more that we made arrangements to be there at all. But still. We broke our important promise of punctuality. A promise made with the best of intentions, broken because of life’s little urgencies. We were fifteen minutes late, and we don’t get the chance for a redo.
Our daily routines shift to something new. A cup of coffee savored in the morning sun becomes a cup of coffee next to the steady clicking of fingers on a keyboard. Hour-long runs during golden evenings become short shakeouts taken later and later at night. Twice a week writing sessions shift to one, then less. There are only so many hours each day, so we learn to savor where we can. Like a slow Sunday morning when you did all your weekly chores on Saturday.
Because our to-do lists are never ending, they simply get longer and longer no matter what we check off, we start on them immediately when we jump [or roll] out of bed. We miss the chance to slowly start our day, because the little urgencies never end. Instead it’s suddenly after noon. We’re still in our pajamas and the dog is still waiting for his morning walk that you both know won’t happen until two or three. Our day never really began. But we’ve already put in six hours of tending to the importunate.
There are seasons for all of us when this is our life. These times of one little urgency after another while the important things wait on the sidelines. We see them. They are by no means forgotten. But we’re on the field, playing on a team a man or two down with no one there to sub in. We’re not going to have a chance to rest between plays or take water breaks. We’re simply grateful for the swigs of water we can grab when we get close enough to the sideline.
There are times when these seasons are necessary. They’re what happens when you decide to take on something new. They are the discomfort that comes when you are navigating you way, maybe without a map, through unfamiliar territory. When you didn’t know quite what you were signing up for, but you just knew in your gut it could be worth it, and you were willing to take that gamble. They are the seasons when you stay in the game even though you are exhausted, and you desperately miss what’s waiting for you on the sidelines.
Every season ends soon enough.
All definitions are courtesy of Merriam Webster.
