Conglomerates

The other day, my youngest daughter was talking about the big rocks (important things) and little rocks (lower priorities) of life. She reminded me, "You're supposed to put the big rocks in the jar first, then the little rocks. Then you put in the sand." 

That's how to successfully fit everything into a jar and into a life. If you put the lesser things in first, there isn't room for the bigger important things. If you put the highest priority things in first, the little things easily filter into the spaces.

"All I've been doing is the sand," my daughter said. 

She has been spending a lot of time thinking about the big things she wants to accomplish in life without acting on the steps that lead to them. Merely thinking about doing things isn't putting in rocks. It's more like pondering the jar. She has seemed very resistant to doing basic survival type things like eating and drinking because they've seemed too small and insignificant to her; they've seemed like nothing but sand.

That's when it hit me: survival activities are not sand. Survival is actually a very big rock made up of smaller rocks like a conglomerate boulder. It is surely the biggest rock we need to have in our jar. 

Geologists call those little rocks in a bigger, conglomerate rock, "clasts." They are smaller stones or fragments all held together by a kind of cement made of sand and clay particles. 

Those little things we do in life to survive are like the clasts that make up a conglomerate rock of survival-- the essential first rock in our life's jar.

Most of us don't really need to think much about trying to survive thanks to the relative ease of following our instincts. The effort is practically invisible. Just like most of us don't usually have to think about whether or not our heart will continue beating, we automatically do lots of little instinctual things to survive like eat, drink, sleep, and otherwise take care of our bodies. Unfortunately, my strong-minded, strong-willed daughter has somehow overridden some of those instincts. She now has to make a huge, conscious effort to do some of them.

It's preferable for the big rock of survival to remain so automatic it's invisible. It's almost like it becomes part of the jar to make it stronger. Even those seemingly small things that make life feel more survivable like exercise, personal hygiene, and having an organized environment can become almost effortlessly invisible through creating and maintaining firmly formed habits. Once these things become automatic, we have more room in our minds to focus on seemingly grander activities. 

I'm going to continue thinking about the small things that make a huge difference in life.