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Setting Priorities: Creating A Sphere of Awareness and Influence

I’m happily retired. I begin most mornings by reading “The Morning,” a digital version of “news” highlights from The New York Times, while drinking my chicory coffee. This news outlet provides me enough details about their selected important matters of the world for me to be informed (I always read Thomas Friedman), but also allows me to skim past items of little or no interest to me. In addition, the “news” app on my phone provides me with an opportunity to read articles from several other publications (I seek out articles from “The Atlantic”), and later in the evening we normally listen to Ari Melber on MSNBC from 6:00-7:00 on week nights. I purposely limit my involvement with social media. I do not do Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TicToc, etc..


This week, I paused and asked myself, “Is my awareness of all this information good or harmful to my daily wellbeing?” “Should I explore where the meaningful circumference is within my sphere of awareness?” “What are the limits of my influence?” "Should I narrow the aperture of my mind to what matters?"


After pondering these questions, I visualized a sphere that contains four circles: 1) the inner circle or core that represents my self-awareness (the “I” -a trichotomous shape that includes: information, intuition, and intent); 2) a circle of family; 3) a circle of friends, colleagues, and acquaintances; and 4) an outer circle that represents the rest of the world.



An internet search led me to several pertinent articles including:



Ricky Derisz on Stephen Covey’s circle of influence:


I say influence sphere, Stephen Covey said influence circle. At least that was the description the iconic self-help guru chose in his hugely influential book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. In the first section of the book, Covey’s first habit of self-mastery is to Be Proactive. He explains his model for proactivity with two diagrams; the circle of influence and the circle of concern.

  • The circle of influence covers the things in life we have an influence over. These are things you can take direct action upon. Covey emphasized the importance of focusing energy on areas of life where you can make an impact.

  • The circle of concern: these are things outside of our direct control, such as the economy, international relations, or even the behavior of other people, to some degree. Getting caught up in these areas leads to a feeling of powerlessness.

Within these two models, Covey saw that those who focus on what they influence in a positive manner generally expand their circle of influence, thus having a greater impact on the world. Conversely, those who overly focused on elements outside of their exclusive control exerted less overall influence, becoming passive, reactive, and at the mercy of external events.


The key is to take action on areas within your control or areas of influence and work on letting go of everything else. Letting go is easier said than done. It’s an ongoing practice of acceptance and exploration.

It’s worth noting that projecting excessive focus on global events deflects from inner work or responsibility, so it might be worth exploring underlying beliefs if you often find yourself focusing on things outside of your control.



The takeaway: being one who seeks to be well-balanced (I was born a Libra), I will continue to seek information, will trust my intuition, and am intent to set priorities that will benefit myself, my family, my circle of friends, and if my sphere of influence reaches the outer circle then perhaps the world will listen to reason.



Love After Love


The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome, And say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was yourself. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.



CPW

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