What really matters

Our societies are filled with urgent demands—to-do lists that steal our time, demand our attention, and take up space in our lives. I feel like we’re chasing the moon without ever catching up to it. Moving at a pace that doesn’t allow us to appreciate our surroundings or stop to rest, we walk on autopilot, searching for the gold at the end of the rainbow.

Money, a good job, a house, a car, marriage—these are urgent goals we must achieve before age 30, and in the pursuit of these urgent goals, life passes us by: we let the most important things slip away.

Because in life, as I have said on other occasions, there are things more important than material things. We cannot nor should we postpone our happiness just for when we have bought a nice house, when we graduate, or when we get married. We can be happy doing what truly matters, which is essential even if it has no price or is not on the list of the top 10.

Personally, I try to do daily what is important to me. Obviously, what is important to me may not be important to others, and that is valid. For me, being with my family, talking with them, knowing they are well, is fundamental. So much so that, when my nephew was in the ICU, my boss demanded that I go to work and I simply told her that my family was more important, that she could fire me if she deemed it necessary, but my family needed me.

Similarly, resting and dedicating time to myself is important. Breathing, walking at my own pace, nourishing my stomach and my brain, is the way I take care of myself, organize my thoughts, connect with what is inside me, and tell myself that I am important to me. I don’t like to get caught up in urgent matters that were due yesterday, and that make stress set the pace and my cortisol rise. It is important to have the time to be well with my physical and mental health.

I don’t fall into the game of doing what others expect me to do, only what I want to do, what fills me. So my days are full of routines that bring well-being and joy, satisfaction and peace.

So, if I devoted myself to doing only important things, my days would be not only more positive but also more satisfying. Filling the hours doing what we want and not what others demand of us, doing it at our own pace and not with the hurry dictated by society, gives us peace, joy, and pleasure. We must live without undoing the present by invoking a future we do not know, and not because others say they want to reach the moon, we should go after it, without knowing why we want it and if we really care about having it.

The main image was edited in Canva. All images are from my personal gallery, and the text was translated using Deepl.

Thank you for reading and for your comments. Until next time, friends