Order and dispatch

THE way things are now, we really should learn how to blend well the requirements of order and the necessity of dispatch. There are now such a growing number of things to attend to that if we do not know how to blend these two items, we would simply be lost. 

 And if we are not emotionally stable and psychologically healthy to handle this predicament, then it is very easy for us to fall into all kinds of mental illness. Things would just get worse in our life. 

 In a previous essay, I have said that the virtue of order has become these days a huge, tricky and nasty challenge. And that’s simply because there are just so many things to take care of. 

 In that scenario, the likelihood is high for us to get easily distracted, to lose our proper sense of priority, to simply give knee-jerk reactions that would fail to consider see the over-all picture of any issue at hand. 

 It’s important that while we should worry about doing things with certain dispatch, we should also see to it that everything is done with the proper priority. The obvious reason was articulated once by a saint who said something to the effect that it profits us nothing if we manage to run fast but out of track. We will never reach the finish line that way. 

 Keeping the proper priorities means that we should first of all be motivated by love of God and others. This is and should be the ultimate and constant motivation of everything we do in our life. 

 We should be wary of our strong tendency to be motivated only by self-interest or by some worldly goals which, while having their objective value, would give us nothing in the end if they are not animated by the love of God and others. 

 Let’s always remember what Christ said in this regard. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul,” he said. (Mk 8,36) Of course, given our weakened human condition, we usually act with purely human and worldly motives alone. But it would be good if from time to time, we pause so that we can purify our intentions and set things aright. We can always do that. 

 Let’s remember that two of the most important elements that would make any human act of ours to be good and moral, pleasing to God and capable of bringing us to him, are that both the object of the act and the intention behind the act should be good, that is, in accordance with the will of God, our Father and Creator. 

 We should not just be concerned with the technical aspects of what can be considered as meeting the requirements of order and the necessity of dispatch. These technical aspects should be attended to as a consequence of our love for God and others. In other words, religion, faith, hope and charity have to come in as primary consideration and the animating spirit behind our actions. 

 Thus, of the many things we have to do, let’s give primary attention to prayer, recourse to the sacraments, and other related duties we have toward God. They should not be attended to only when we have extra time. They have to be given time and priority always!