I am in the luxurious position of spending most of my time doing exactly what I want to do. Of course, there are still toilets to clean, laundry, bills and taxes, but I love my day job and spend my free time cooking good stuff, doing yoga, practicing calligraphy and hanging with friends and family.
I’ve managed to pull this off in large part by taking to heart the advice I learned years ago from Steven Covey, a guru of many things, including time management. I saw him speak at a large seminar where he did the Big Rocks Demo. With two large empty jars in front of him, he filled the first one completely with small pebbles. Needless to say, when he tried to then put a large rock in the jar, it didn’t fit. In the second jar, he placed four or five of the large rocks. On top of these, he poured in smaller pebbles, then added sand, and finally water so the jar truly was filled to capacity.
The point of the demo was an admonishment to create time in your life for the Big Rocks—the things that are most important. I don’t know what that means specifically for you, but for most people, it means time for our family, our health, our spiritual growth, jobs, fun and friends.
Being in the grip of addiction--whether to substances such as Percocet®, Roxicet®, Dilaudid®, Vicodin®, fentanyl, heroin, Suboxone®, methadone, pot, booze or benzos—robs you of the best life has to offer. It causes you to ‘fill your jar’ with a thousand tiny pebbles, neglecting what’s most important.
Geneen Roth who has written and speaks extensively about her experiences with eating disorders eloquently states, “Until we examine what we really want, we mistake indulgence (in what we think we want) for freedom.”I urge you to contact the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine if you need some assistance in releasing yourself from your addiction to any substance that is causing you to skew your priorities. Putting your Big Rocks in the jar first is what it’s all about. Call us now or request a callback by clicking the button below.
Joan R. Shepherd, FNP
