Priorities

Priority is the ordering of a list according to some reason or rule.

Whenever I become overwhelmed by a large list of tasks that need to be accomplished quickly, I prioritize the tasks according to importance and due date, and concentrate on accomplishing the tasks one by one. Although many people are able to multitask, I still think that they incorporate a certain amount of prioritization in their work.

In trying to fix the multitude of problems that our nation and world are facing, I think that we can use this technique to develop a strategy. 

First, we need to establish the foundation of our strategy, the reason or rule that gives us guidance. If we use the purpose of life as that foundation, then all prioritization is based upon that guidance (see Why We Are Here). We base our decisions on “The purpose in life is to have (help to have) children and to raise (help to raise) them intelligently.”  

Second, we make a list of what is needed to attain that goal. What are the things we need to do to help to have children who can lead healthy and full lives? Certainly that begins with educating everyone in child rearing and healthy living. Adolescents and adults need to learn a great deal, in order to promote intelligent child rearing and to be good role models. We need to have prenatal and child healthcare for everyone, either free or at modest cost. We need to have the best education system available, borrowing ideas from every country. We need to expand our post-secondary education, insuring that it is affordable by all that want to continue to learn. The list of goals needs to be established by committees that are not influenced by outside interests. If greed can be eliminated, then one powerful negative influence will be removed (see Greed). 

Third, we need to allocate funding according to the best plan, with everyone realizing that will mean that certain programs will suffer. Currently, nearly half of our Federal Income Tax goes to paying for the defense/offense industry, which will need to be greatly reduced. Currently, our military spending is about as much as all other nations combined. It seems logical to reduce it to a little more than whoever is second in military spending, saving the United States hundreds of billions of dollars. Instead of those billions of dollars going toward the making of new bombs, bombers, air carriers and nuclear submarines, those billions will go to hospitals, clinics, parks, schools and colleges. We will even have billions to spend on solving our future energy needs (see Conservation, Recycling and Energy).

Hopefully, you can see how priorities can help to create a brighter future. Intelligent thinking can help this to come about. Greedy individuals, neo-con propagandists, and the marketing of fear are keeping us from attaining that future (see Greed, Neo-cons, Propaganda, Fear, Security, and United States).