In the movie A Few Good Men, Lt. Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) is privately questioning a man whom he is defending. The man is charged with murdering a fellow Marine. Lance Cpl. Dawson defiantly shouts his code: “Unit! Corps! God! Country!” In this Marine’s mind, these are his priorities of living. (From the exchange, it’s not clear if he places Unit or Country at the top of his priority list.)
The core values of all Marines are honor, courage, and commitment. Honor is loyalty and dedication to God, Country, Corps, Family, and Self.
So, this got me thinking, “What would Forrest Gump’s priorities for living have been?”
He believed in God. He was fiercely loyal to his family, the Army, and his country. His personal integrity demonstrated an uncompromising loyalty to himself: “A promise is a promise.“
Obviously, we can only surmise what Forrest’s priorities of living would have been. He never stated them directly.
What are your priorities for living life?
Here are my 5 Priorities of Living, and why I placed them in this particular order of importance.
Steve’s 5 Priorities of Living
1. God
I make no distinction between people’s perceptions of God. Some of the most common Gods include Christ, Buddha, Yahweh, and Allah. Some may see God sitting on a moss-covered rock by a mountain spring with warm sun rays radiating from a blue sky. I believe whatever image a person chooses for their God is highly personal. God is a reflection of a person’s self. So, I place God first on my list because self-love, self-dignity, and self-respect form the foundation for loving others. It’s impossible to love another if one does not first love one’s self.
2. Family
Those immediately surrounding a self-loving person are his family. Traditionally, this includes your spouse, children and some extended family like a parent or grandparent. Today the family concept has expanded to includes your partner, significant other, and potentially some with whom you most closely work. For me, family takes on the second highest priority.
3. Country
In my list, ‘country’ is used to define the communities in which we live. I’m not using country to strictly describe the United States or any of the planet’s other 196 countries currently configured by manmade boundaries. Country, in a broad sense, could be used to describe Earth. For me, country is about our communities … from the people on your street to all fellow humans living on Earth. Maybe I should use the term community instead of country.
4. Integrity
Integrity is similar to God in the broadest sense … how one conducts his or her life … but I distinguish integrity as a manifestation of one’s outward energy, whereas God is more of a person’s inward energy. How do you interact with your neighbors, co-workers, and the strangers you meet on the street? What messages are other people receiving about your character?
5. Work Hard
This is what it takes to survive and live. We wake up in the morning, and we need to work hard every day. Hundreds of years ago, working hard meant doing whatever was necessary to obtain food for today and tomorrow … to enable our families to survive. Today, working hard means using your effort towards generating goods, services, or experiences that are of value to others. This value generates compensation to purchase food, shelter, and hopefully some of life’s niceties. Without hard work there will be no compensation. Without hard work you may survive … but you certainly won’t prosper.
My guess is that most (or maybe all) of my 5 Priorities of Living would have been on Forrest Gump’s list. The exact order and his specific reasons could surely have been different … each of us make our own choices.
For example, a Marine’s interpretation of country would differ from mine, and would be a direct reference of the United States of America. And this same Marine chooses country over family and self. Wow! I’m humbly grateful!
Ultimately, the exact order isn’t what’s most important. They all complement and support each other. They all contribute to a person’s meaning and reason for living.
What are your priorities of living?
What priority do you place at the top? Why?
What priorities are most important to you and absent from my list?
Next Blog Title: Use Common Sense to Drive Integrity.
Next Blog Date: February 7, 2011