A dream taught me that important does not mean urgent.
SAT
Something happened today.
In the dream, I was travelling with a small boy. We were moving along a narrow ledge beside a building, perhaps six feet above the ground. There was no railing. We had to move carefully.
Near where we were trying to go, there was a gap. I found a shaft containing an elevator, but reaching it required climbing down a ladder into a hole. I had the sense that the elevator might take us to some mechanism—a bridge, perhaps—that would let us cross.
Then armed men appeared along the ledge. Gunfire started. Suddenly the problem was no longer how to reach the destination. The problem was that we were standing in the middle of a firefight. So I turned back. The destination still mattered. But reaching it right then did not matter enough to risk lives. We could try another time.
When it was safe. That dream gave me a distinction I badly needed in waking life. Important is not the same as urgent. A goal can matter deeply without deserving to be forced today. That seems obvious until you care very much about the goal.
Then every delay can feel like betrayal. You begin telling yourself that because the destination is important, pushing forward must also be important. The dream said no. Timing is part of reality too. Safety is part of reality. Capacity is part of reality.
Turning back does not erase the destination. Sometimes turning back is how you remain able to reach it later. That morning, the lesson connected to something I had already been learning about schedules and self-kindness. I had missed an earlier target I set for myself.
My instinct was to punish the delay. But the better work was happening when I felt grounded and alive in the process.
