Priorities and Importance

There's always talk of "getting your priorities straight" or giving to much importance to some minor happening. The problem with this is when people assume that everyone should more or less have the same priorities. Maybe I care too much about (or give too much importance to), say, my fantasy hockey team to the point where someone might think it's silly for me to get upset about losing. I mean, it's not the end of the world and there are other things far more important out there, right? Yes, that's right but at the same time, I don't have the same things to worry about as other people. Someone might say "Well my kids, significant other, family, etc are the most important things and are so important that something like a silly game should hardly matter. Maybe I'll get upset, but I know (inset person/people) will cheer me up and remind me how insignificant it is." This is all fine and dandy if you have those people in your life. But what happens when you don't? What if you don't have a significant other or kids or are not close to your family? Even if those things would be your top priorities, if they are not in your life, then they won't occur on your current priority list. So when you lose your silly game, you care more about it and give more importance to it because you don't currently have much that is more important.

Part of "growing up" is adding to your life, and what you add is often quite important, such as a career or kids. Another part is learning how to prioritize things and figure out what is most important. You'll often hear people say how having kids had a major change on their outlook in life or made them more responsible. This is, at least in part, just figuring out how to organize their priorities as well as having a major change in their life. The small things lose importance because they now have bigger things to care about and make important.

The point is that even if someone seems immature or silly for giving too much importance or too high of a priority to something, doesn't necessarily mean that they need to "grow up" or get their priorities straight. It might just be that the most important things in your life happen to be missing from theirs.