Roles II

Okay. So today as Step Two of deciding on my roles (to prepare for goals, of course!), I have to prioritize what I do (again, this exercise based on the incredibly helpful Craft the Life You Want: Creating a Blueprint for Your Future at artofmanliness.com).

As a reminder, here are my roles listed yesterday:

- Husband
- Father
- Son
- Brother
- Friend
- Manager
- Employee
- Counselor
- Author
- Gardener
- Swordsman
- Renter
- Musician
- Dreamer
- Entrepreneurial Agriculturalist
- Disciple
- Scholar

That should be 17 (Hang on, let me count - yup, 17). Great. So all I have to do is prioritize them.

But how do I prioritize them? That's kind of the rub. Do I prioritize them as they way they are now or the way I would like them to be? Those are two very different lists. Here's what it would look like now:

1. Employee
2. Manager
3. Husband
4. Father
5. Counselor
6. Disciple
7. Author
8. Friend
9. Swordsman
10. Son
11. Brother
12. Renter
13. Gardener
14. Dreamer
15. Scholar
16. Musician
17. Entrepreneurial Agriculturalist

That's hardly the way I want my life to work - but if I'm honest, that's how it's stacked right now. You'll notice how prominent work related things are - that can't possibly be right (but it is really true)! And disciple (in my case, a disciple of Christ) is way, way down on the list. The things that give me joy (Dreamer, Scholar, Musician, Entrepreneurial Agriculturalist) are also at the bottom.

Perhaps this explains the great disconnect in my life.

Is there anything I could get rid of? Don't know. Maybe "Renter" - but that would just transfer to "Homeowner" at some point, unless I included it where I'm an "Entrepreneurial Agriculturalist". "Son" and "Brother" are, at this moment, a little less of a day to day thing because of our location in New Home - but critical none the less.

Okay, so there is nothing I feel I could remove from this list. So then what would I like the list to look like?

1. Disciple
2. Husband
3. Father
4. Author
5. Son
6. Brother
7. Friend
8. Entrepreneurial Agriculturalist
9. Counselor
10. Swordsman
11. Musician
12. Scholar
13. Dreamer
14. Gardener
15. Renter
16. Employee
17. Manager

That's quite a shift, isn't it: frankly, I don't really like..let's say value being a renter, employee or manager. Hmm, that's sort of interesting.

If you pull those last three, I suddenly see where others could be combined as well. "Counselor" could role into "Friend" (I do a lot of counseling at work right now), and "Gardener" could be rolled into "Entrepreneurial Agriculturalist". That would leave me with 12 roles instead of 17 - quite a doable thing.

Now for the next task: Defining a purpose for each role.