Here's how to be the best at everything you do in life... and also how to get to Heaven

If you want to be a better person....

If you want to be the best person you can be.... Id you want to be seen by others in a positive light... If you want to give yourself the best chance of being observed by the bosses, and the best chance of moving up the latter... if you want to get to Heaven, there are basically 2 things you need to do:

1. Love God with all your mind, heart and soul
2. Love your neighbor with all your mind heart and soul.

Basically, you can take every self help book ever made and you can sum it down to these two things. You can even consider the 10 commandments, and they are all basically these two things. Don't kill, don't lie, don't covet thy neighbor's wife, don't covet thy neighbor's property, and the rest all tie into love thy neighbor.

So now we must define love. What is love?

Love is not an emotion or a feeling. Love is a choice. You have to choose to make sacrifices to put other people before yourself.

Examples of this include:

1. A doctor writes a stupid order.  Instead of complaining, you treat the doctor with love and respect.

2. So you and your wife go to a baseball game and it's 90 degrees. It's the best game you've ever watched, and you want to stay. Yet your wife wants to leave in the 5th inning. So you sacrifice the game to make your wife happy. You choose your wife over your game.

3. It's 90 degrees out and you want to sit inside in the air conditioning, yet in order to put food on the table you decide not to purchase air conditioning. You are frugal for love of your family. You choose your family over your own comfort.

4. It's 90 degrees out and you want to blog or gossip online, yet your son wants to play catch with you. Even though you're sweating your butt off, you play catch with a smile on your face.

Bottom line: It's important you keep your priorities in the right order, and God and other people are right up there at the top.

If you love God and other people before all else, you should have to make no further effort at improving your image, the way people view you historically (note to politicians), and your ability to view your own life as a success.

Values and Priorities

There are many people who read the Bible, and every one of them might have a unique way of interpreting it. This actually occurred recently between myself and one of my patients. We actually both had unique interpretations about the Tower of Babel.

However, in the end, we both decided that every Christian, every person who believes in God, or studies the Bible, however religious, should get two things out of it.

1. Virtues: We must all be virtuous above all else
2. Priorities: We must have our priorities in order

Jesus said that the most important commandment is to believe in God, and the second most important commandment is that you should love your neighbor, and treat your neighbor as you would yourself.

If we can skim it down, if you put God first, then you are putting virtues first. If you are putting your neighbors second, then you are thus putting God first, and thus virtues first. If you are a virtuous person, then you will not only love your neighbor, you will be loved by your neighbor.

So it comes down to -- bottom line -- values and priorities.

The proper order of priorities

I think it was about ten years ago that I had this really neat discussion with one of my patients about priorities.  In fact, what she said was so significant to me, that I shared it with the priest who was going to marry me and my wife, and he used it as part of our wedding sermon.
What she said was this: "In life, if you don't have your priorities straight, nothing ever works out. If you you do not have your priorities straight, you will not succeed in your life."

She put her thumb up. "This is God. He is your number one priority."

She then put her pointer finger up. "This pointer finger represents your wife."

She held up her middle finger up. This finger represents your children."

She held up her ring finger.  "This represents other people."

She held up her pinky finger.  "This represents other things."

"Now," she continued, "If you get these priorities out of place, nothing seems to work properly." 

She demonstrated this by placing her thumb between her pointer and ring finger. Then she made as to grab something, and could not do it.  "See," she said, "your hand does not work right when your fingers are out of order.  The same is true when your priorities are out of order.  If you place God after your wife and before your children, you can't grip anything.  Life simply doesn't work; it's all a mess." 

She placed her thumb between the middle finger and ring finger. "If you place your thumb here, you still can't get a grip on anything. "See!" She opened up her hand, and gripped mine with hers, "the only way you can really grip things, have control of the things in your life, is to put your thumb before your other fingers. God, in essence, is like your thumb. If you have no God in your life, nothing works right."

She smiled, and continued: "The same is true if you get other things in your life out of proper order. You must love your wife before your children, and love your children before other people. But you must always put other people before other things."

Not only did my priest use this during our wedding ceremony, he also used it during mass that week.  He said he was very impressed.  

So, that in mind, I thought I would take the time to list the priorities in my life. Perhaps you might do the same -- just for fun.

1. God 
2. Wife
3. Children
4. Brothers, Relatives, Friends and Co-workers
5. The United States
6. Job
7. Home
8. Sleep
9. Reading, Learning, and Stimulating Brain
10. Sports
11. Blogging
12. Other things

I suppose I was thinking of such priorities when I gave up golf and collecting baseball cards in order to provide for my new family.  I would, however, love to start doing both again, however.