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THE "LAW", HOW IT WORKS IN REALITY
The Law Of Relevancy: Do what actually affects you most, in a positive way, and your life will be filled with more than 10-100 times better benefits.
The more precise name would be "Impact Relevancy", not just is it relevant to oneself, but the degree to which it is more relevant, which can only be based on impact!!! Impact is measured in terms of "Life Value".
The Law Of Irrelevancy: Do what doesn't affect you or gets low payoffs and you'll waste your life, not getting what you want out of your life.
The Good Fairy will not rescue you, nor will there be an accidental circumstance that will rescue you. This is an ironclad (self-definitional) physical world law!
Of course, this aligns with the 80/20 Principle and doing what is of most impact on your life, but it is a different "viewing point" - one that highlights how ludicrous it is to waste our lives in irrelevancies!!!!
It is one of the top-most laws to follow!
HOW I HAVE GOTTEN CAUGHT UP IN THE IRRELEVANT
I notice that I can be swept up in side matters, as if they were important. Of course, if the so-called side matters are something I had decided would be entertaining or a positive distraction, then it would be just fine. Some people follow sports and that becomes an area for satisfaction or they follow other things.
For me, I got caught up in the political debates and the huge irrationality and dysfunctionality. I felt captivated by it.
But, really, what would this get me? What difference could I make with all my efforts and time?
The answer, unfortunately, was that I would make zero difference...and that it would make more sense to put my efforts and time into what actually benefitted me.
WHAT WAS THE MOTIVATION?
Interestingly enough, it appeared that there was an element of "being right" involved in asserting my views of how politics should be done and how to run the country.
How do I know this to be true?
Well, if there was no benefit to my doing it, surely I had to have a reason. And what other reason could there be?
But truly there was no point to it, no real benefit.
HOW DO I LIVE A LIFE OF RELEVANCY?
It is important that I note what is actually relevant - that which will actually make a difference in my life (and in the lives of others).
This is, of course, simply another way of viewing the key to having an effective life: prioritizing by the impact per amount of effort. And that is simply applying the 80/20 Principle as on the site.
The power in life is simply doing that which produces the most of what you truly want and will benefit you. And the first step in applying that principle is always, amazingly enough, deciding what you truly want and will benefit you.
Because that is something that you are not totally clear about, you will have to go through the process of identifying and deciding what those things are.
You would write down you initial answers and then add answers or realizations as you go, using a format where you can capture those things.
Then the idea is to "stay on the path", to follow "the way". The word discipline actually is derived from a way or a path. So discipline is simply staying and/or returning to the path, as often and as much as you can. Of course, it is imperfectly done in all human cases, as our lower brains can run things wrongly if we let them - and we surely cannot be 100% "on" all the time, where we are engaging our higher brain and being in a high state of resourcefulness.
But part of the path, or the process of staying on the path, is assuring that we have our working parts working and in good order, so that they serve us. So, anything that creates a higher state of resourcefulness is relevant to going down the path to where we want to go.
AND HOW DO I EFFECTIVELY REMIND MYSELF OF THIS
And I need to remind myself in a way that I am motivated to do it - versus just going with my short term whim for what seems most attractive or anxiety reducing at the time.
We stay on a path by remembering (being reminded) that it is important to stay on the path. So I put this in my reminder/tickler system.
We add importance to it by clearly defining it and making it into a "statement". "I see the huge importance of my only doing what is relevant to me and not letting myself drift into doing any of the irrelevant!!! This I commit to for my lifetime, as it is a huge effector of my life!"
We make things stick by sitting down and deciding on specifics, measuring how well we are doing and correcting to what a higher level of doing.
WHAT IS IRRELEVANT TO ME IS...
Because I have more things that I could do but I can't do them all, I insert what is the most important and let the others that are not necessary fall by the wayside.
The list of what is most important for me:
The list of what I now do or could do that is irrelevant and wasteful of my time:
TV, political
Most email - cut out regular notices of low importance (80%)
DECIDE RIGHT NOW, COMMIT RIGHT NOW
Decide what is irrelevant and commit to not doing them and to asking "Is this of sufficient relevance for me to do?"
That's your assignment. Surely it deserves to be thought about, written down, and inserted at least in your Reminders Notebook. Do an initial "quickie" dump on a piece of paper, taking about 15 minutes. Then, either do this now or tickle it, spend the remainder of about 4 hours nailing it, once and for all - so you can live your life based on this - and so you can have a much, much greater life!
This IS a super-high payoff activity!!!!
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ADDITIONAL, OPTIONAL NOTES
Barbara was "upset" (perhaps disgusted?) that I declared the oil spill in the Gulf as being an item that I was not giving concern to.
Sure, I was "concerned" as a human being about the effects on other human beings. (Our society makes up 'cultural imperatives' that we must follow to be considered 'good people'. If we appear to be selfish and not supporting the group, it is considered a bad thing, a threat to the cooperation and the good of the group. But society thinks of this in a vague, undefined way, not really doing 'critical thinking' about what is actually of the greatest impact. Yes, 'morality' is often a good shortcut to keep things in control, and, yes, we did evolve to have the inclination to cooperate in order to survive better, but morality can be misused and misapplied if we do not also do critical thinking - which will benefit us alot more than 'rote' rules!)
But it was not of relevance to me, since clearly it did not affect me even remotely (perhaps 'minisculey'?). There was no reason to use up my emotional units nor to trigger some bad chemicals about it. Plus it subtracts from what I could contribue to the world with my emotional energy put into those things that actually produce a (higher) result and benefit to me and/or the world.
I noted also that there was nothing I could do, especially compared to other good results I could get elsewhere, that would affect the effects at all.
So, wouldn't it make no sense at all, other than trying to be popular and politically correct in order to get approval from others, to put energy toward it???!!!!!???
In a sense (no insult meant), wouldn't we be operating mindlessly if we let vague "shoulds" (never fully reasoned out) run our lives - and cause us to have ill opinions of others, with no sound basis!
This is why I encourage people to learn and develop their critical thinking skills, because with those skills we can decide much, much better what to do that makes life much better. The downside, if one doesn't do this, is to live a much less happy life, operating off of alot of nonsense, creating strife instead of solutions, trying to control in ineffective and inappropriate ways - and to live a life far, far below what it could be!!!!
