One of my siblings recently got married and had a baby. As they were living this new life, myself and other family members realized something. They now had less time for us. Instead of coming around to the standard family events like they used to, they now had to “squeeze us in” between other things going on with their life. This become the most apparent around Christmas time. My sibling and their family now only stopped by for a few hours around the Christmas holiday, and on Christmas day this meant only seeing them for 2-3 hours. In previous years we would have been together nonstop. This broke my Mom’s heart. She could no longer be with all of her kids 24/7 during holidays and major life events.
It was during this Christmas that I realized something. My sibling had to deprioritize us for their spouse and eventually their new child. And that’s perfectly ok. They now had a new top priority in life, and myself and other family and friends are now lower down on the list. A new inner circle of priorities formed for them, and myself and others were no longer in it. We had to make due with this new reality and understand it could get worse in the future. This kind of deprioritization also happens with friends too. It just gets hard to prioritize people in your life as new people come into it.
The list of life priorities is something I like the call the “inner circles of life”. Sounds fancy but it’s just a list of what you truly prioritize and make time for in life. Your inner most circle is your top priority. Then circles form around and outward. With each new circle, your priorities of things in that circle drops. Let’s see how that changes as we get older.
Age 0-1
- Mom
When you’re born, the only person that exists is your mother. Dad, who’s Dad? What’s a Dad? You have no idea. The only person you recognize and bond with is your Mom. No one else comes close.
Age 1-6
- Mom
- Dad
- Grandparents, Aunt/Uncle
Ok, now Dad comes into the picture as the second circle of your life, but Mom still holds the inner most circle. You also now get to know there are other people who love you unconditionally. These people are called Grandparents and they’re awesome. All they do is give you hugs and tasty food, life is great when they are around. Aunts and Uncles come into the picture to. They kind of look like Mom and Dad but smell different and always seem to get out of having to change your diaper. Lucky them.
Age 7-12
- Parents
- Friends
- Siblings
- Relatives
Your parents still keep the top spot, but now they are more like a combined unit. Not just separate people but a singular force. Now they are telling you to do chores and keep an eye on your brothers and sisters. Who the heck are they? These people look like me but have different interests and personalities. And hey, they’re mean! We don’t get along that well. We always fight. So they are definitely farther down on the list. Same goes with Grandparents and other relatives. We still enjoy seeing them, but we’d rather hang out more with these people who go to school with you. People your own age who have the same interests as you. Who you see every day at school. People who give you their pudding cup just because you looked hungry. These people are your friends, and they are the best. They now take a higher spot on the list. Life starts to revolve more around your friends and less around your other family members.
Age 13-25
- Friends
- Romantic Partners
- Siblings
- Parents
- Relatives
This is what I have come to call the “dark decade”. A time where you kinda suck as a person. You might hate your parents. You might hate school. You might just hate the world. Don’t worry that’s just your emo phase, it’ll pass. Friends become your top priority in life. School might be on that list too but it most likely won’t come until your college years, so I’ve left it off the list for now. There are now others who might have initially looked like friends. But who you now see in a different light. They smell nice. They have shiny hair. They seem cool. You’d like to get to know them more. Maybe even kiss them right on the mouth. Yes, these are people I call romantic partners. Hopefully they do not occupy the top spot on the list. You know the saying, bros before ____ right? Wrong. At times a girlfriend, boyfriend, or someone you admire (who might not know you even exist) could take the top spot. You might even go to a specific college on the other side of the country for them. This dark decade is where mistakes happen. Where you fail a lot. Do dumb things. Thankfully all of this dumb stuff happens when you’re at a school of some sort, so the mistakes are temporary. These mistakes are things you learn from and grow into a better person (hopefully).
Age 22-26
- Job
- Romantic Partners
- Friends
- Parents
- Siblings
- Relatives
Now you’re in the real world. And you need money to live. Work has now become your top priority. Don’t believe me? How many of your friends took jobs in different cities after college graduation? Did you break up with your romantic partner because you both were headed to different cities to start your careers? Yup, it happens. It’s ok to have your job be the top priority. You need to establish yourself at this stage in life. Build a career that’s going somewhere. You also might be in a serious relationship with someone who smells nice and has shiny hair. Lucky you. This person might even move in with you. Your roommate used to be your best friend. Now you’ve kicked them out for a different kind of best friend, one you may want to spend every day of the rest of your life with. Friends are still high up on the list, but they might live in a different city now. You take trips to visit them, but you only have so many vacation days off work. You also need to balance that with time to see your parents and other family members. Now you have too many life balls in the air to juggle, so some might get dropped. When was the last time you called your Grandparents? Call them now.
Age 25-35
- Spouse
- Job
- Parents
- Siblings
- Friends
- Relatives
By now you might have married your roommate who smells nice. Where you live and sometimes changing jobs are based on this other person. They are now the center of your world. Having a job and good friends are still high up on the list, but those fall by the wayside compared to your new spouse. You are now out of the “dark decade”, so naturally your parents and siblings become fun again. You genuinely enjoy hanging out with them. And miss them when they’re not around. Now that you’re starting to see your family more, and your job responsibilities are heating up, all of a sudden you can’t see your friends +3x a week. Some of your friends might move away, back to their or their spouse’s hometown. It happens, and it kinda sucks. But that’s life. They’re also dealing with their own priorities just like you.
Age 28-38
- Kids
- Spouse
- Job
- Parents
- Siblings
- Friends
- Relatives
The most beautiful thing in the world happens. A baby comes into your life. Everything else is meaningless. The only the thing that matters is making sure this child is happy and healthy. Your kids become your inner most circle. Everything else gets bumped down the list of priorities. You now realize you need baby sitters, because eventually you might have to return to work. This is where parents and siblings come in. Now you’re closer than ever with them. Friends visit you, but that weekly poker game or all night weekend party is now out of the question. You have someone to feed and someone to love. Life is beautiful. Work falls on the list too. Late night and weekend working sessions become harder. Now you have to tradeoff time at work with time with your child. This becomes a hard choice that has been argued thousands of times by smart people. The answer is hard. Thankfully by now you have built up some career capital. Meaning you can use your seniority and expertise at your company to guard your time more. Only work on the biggest impact items instead of the grunt work you did at the start of your career. They say you can have everything in life, just not all at once. Choices have to be made. Just know the tradeoffs of each one. Make sure you define your own definition of success in life. Which can be truly anything. No one has the right answer. No one has it all figured out.
Age 35+
- Kids
- Spouse
- Parents
- Siblings
- Friends
- Job
- Relatives
Hopefully by your mid to late thirties you are able to find a nice smelling person. Maybe even raise some rugrats. By this time you have also built up a lot of career capital. Maybe this means you can now do your job how and when you’d like. Maybe your job is still demanding most of your time. Good news, things will only get worse. More people will ask for your time. Pull you in a thousand directions. Ask you to do more. Then more. Then once you get all of that work done, your reward is more work. Congrats! Maybe you tell yourself you’ll retire early. That way you can then have more time to spend with your family. Like I said before, I don’t know the right answer. I don’t think anyone does. So again I’ll say that life is all about priorities and tradeoffs. How you define success in life could be different than someone else. And that’s ok. I think in a perfect world your family and friends are still high on the list as you get older. You can spend more time with them, and maybe less time on that job. Or maybe your job fulfills you immensely. You know the work contributes to making the world better. So working more is a worthwhile tradeoff. Do Presidents of nations feel bad that they cannot spend time with their family every day? Maybe they do, maybe not. For me I don’t think retiring to a beach for the rest of my life is any fun. I’d like to be like Charlie Munger, working into his 90s. I assume he wasn’t working nights and weekends in his 90s. Instead he still worked, but also made time for other relationships in his life. Again, there’s no right answer.
Final Thoughts
When we’re on our deathbed. I don’t think any of us will say “I wish I worked harder”. The quality of our life boils down to the quality of our relationships. The quality of your relationship with your kids, parents, siblings, friends, and extended family. Relationships at work can serve a purpose too, but it’s hard for a job to replace these other types of relationships. You can have everything in life, just not all at once. Everything comes with a tradeoff. In the end, define what success looks like to you and have zero f#### for anyone else who tells you how to live your life. Prioritize accordingly.