URGENT VS IMPORTANT

Which do you think should get first place in life -  urgent things or important things?  By definition urgent means - pressing, immediate, screaming for attention.  That gives the connotation of a police car, lights flashing, siren roaring, speeding through an intersection.  Something is happening NOW and it needs immediate attention.  Important says - of value, enduring, deep, lasting, of significance, prominence, priceless.  It gives the image of my grandmother's one hundred year old rocking chair that sits in my living room.   Something of value that needs prominence.   I have battled urgent over important all my life.  It's been an on-going battle to not succumb to the screams of the urgent things (which have wanted my attention), to the exclusion of the important things (which need significance & value from me).  Writing this blog has been a study in urgent vs. important.  For five months I chose, with single mindedness, to make writing important.  It has deep value to me.  In spite of the events of my life (and there have been a lot, just read earlier posts), I cradled the importance of writing.  I guarded it and nurtured it.  Recent events have screamed for my attention - dating, marriage, combining households, changing jobs, an endless supply of business decisions, new family relationships, trips, etc...  I folded to the urgent over the important.  My craft that I love, the thoughts that I let out, the expression of words on a page got crowded out.  I found myself saying, "After we complete this.  Next week will slow down.  After I get my office more organized after combining household belongings."  The list went on and on.  One day I woke up and the gnawing sensation in my soul that had been quietly speaking the importance and value of writing was now wanting its place of significance it once had.  I had once again in life said "uncle" to the urgent!!  Time to reorganize my determination to live this half of my life differently than the first - time to stay to what is vitally important to me.  It was time to not veer from what my soul knew was important - my design, what was valuable.  I pulled my vehicle back on the road, so to speak, and started again to build, protect and give prominence to those things that are of great and lasting value, which bring significance, which deserve prominence and dedication daily.  A compass correction has occurred.