The Sixth Priority

It remains to be seen whether this effort can have any influence in helping to shape a reader or two. Interestingly, it has already affected the writer in the process, by lessons now recalled but not in sharp focus or not fully appreciated during the actual experience. It has sharpened the focus on:

Life’s Priorities:

1. Our own life, its health, its longevity, and its quality. (Without the first priority the others would be greatly diminished).

2. The life of our mates, their health, longevity, and quality.

3. The creation of our offspring and their life’s health, longevity, and quality.

4. Our other family members and their life’s health, longevity, and quality.

5. The concern for and the treatment of others.

6. Our life’s work. It has profound impact on the other priorities, on all those around us, and even on the future of our race. It is responsible for all human “Progress.”

“Following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Maya Angelou said that hope has replaced the horror of that sight.

‘I can see in the acorn the oak tree,’ Angelou said. ‘I see the growth, the rebuilding, the restoring. I see that is the American psyche. There is so much we can draw understanding from. One of the lessons is the development of courage. Because without courage, you can’t practice any of the other virtues consistently’.”^{[3 ]}

In the “acorns” of passion, imagination and courage can be seen the magnificent, flourishing oak forest of modern democratic mankind, its freedoms, and its collective life’s work: its progress

^{[3 ]}John Smyntek, Poet Angelou Speaks Out, (The Detroit Free Press, October 9, 2001).