Triage: Sorting and allocating aid on the basis of need for or likely benefit from medical treatment or food. [WordWeb Dictionary]
Yesterday, my pastor mentioned the process of triage in his sermon and my mind started racing. Just as medical personnel need to make gut-wrenching decisions on the battle field about who to help and who not to help based upon who they believe will live or die, I began to think that I'm in the middle of life triage. The magnitude of the decisions I'm currently making (mostly business related) aren't life or death, but they are still difficult to make.
I googled the phrase "life triage" thinking that somebody probably has created an entire self-help seminar under that title, or that somebody was using it as a blog title (it would be a great blog title, wouldn't it?) and while I didn't find any seminars or blog titles, I did find a blog post titled "life triage" on a dead blog. Here's what the writer said:
"Chris and I did a process I call life triage on Sunday morning over the breakfast table. I'm not sure if he even realized that's what we were doing. Life triage is taking an honest look at your life, figuring out where you are and where you want to be, actually getting down some goals, and figuring out several tangible steps towards each of those goals. Life triage is all about figuring out what's worth working on, what's already dead, and what you can't do anything for at the moment."
Isn't that good?
If we were to divide our lives into those three areas (areas worthy of being worked on, areas that are [or should be] dead, and areas we can't do anything about right now), how much easier might the decision making process be? I still don't think it would be easy, because it might mean killing off or putting off a hobby or a dream, but it would be easier since it would seem like a necessary step in a bigger plan.
