{"id":20126,"date":"2020-11-05T09:00:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T17:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=20126"},"modified":"2020-10-27T10:36:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-27T17:36:57","slug":"the-examined-life-get-your-priorities-straight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2020\/11\/05\/the-examined-life-get-your-priorities-straight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Examined Life<\/em>: Get your priorities straight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should I work on homework or chill out with some snacks and watch Star Trek<\/em>? If I choose homework, which class do I focus on? Okay, History\u2014which assignment do I prioritize? We do this with everything: all the time, we are putting one thing ahead of something else, prioritizing our tasks. We can only do so many things at once, so the most important things take priority and sometimes the other stuff falls by the wayside. That\u2019s just life.<\/p>\n

You prioritize the things that you think are going to make you happy. You roll the dice and hope for the best. I guess my problem is I overthink it. I\u2019m comfortable rolling the dice on things like homework and Star Trek<\/em>, but when the decisions get a little bigger, I get cold feet. The bigger the decision, the harder it is to let go of those dice. How big does the decision have to be before you\u2019d hesitate?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Examined Life<\/em> is a column appearing in every issue of Nexus<\/em> (photo by Ethan Badr\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What about making decisions that affect whether people live or die? That kind of decision is a reality during this pandemic. Lock down and save lives, or grant people liberty with the knowledge that more people are going to die? Talk about \u201cLife, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness\u201d; what happens when it\u2019s \u201cLife or liberty and the pursuit of happiness\u201d?<\/p>\n

Well, you have to start assigning importance to those things, prioritizing those things. How much weight do you assign a life? How many lives are worth liberty? I can\u2019t answer those kinds of questions, but obviously there are people that can and will.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a new thing, either. Look at just about any war throughout history\u2014how many lives are worth winning a war? Depends on the war and your priorities, I guess. What of climate change? Climate change could be solved if an eco-friendly dictator ruled the world. How much freedom do you restrict to solve a crisis like climate change?<\/p>\n

These are not questions that are going away. Someone is making these decisions and I think it\u2019s best to be aware of that. How much freedom is your life worth? Your grandparents\u2019 lives? The planet\u2019s life? And who gets to decide?<\/p>\n

I know I\u2019ve asked a lot of questions with this one. And I\u2019m sorry I don\u2019t have any good answers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should I work on homework or chill out with some snacks and watch Star Trek? If I choose homework, which class do I focus on? Okay, History\u2014which assignment do I prioritize? We do this with everything: all the time, we are putting one thing ahead of something else, prioritizing our tasks. We can only do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20127,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20126\/revisions\/20127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}