So what exactly is it that surges through our veins? My father used to say it was piss and vinegar when he encountered someone with a rotten personality. Obviously, we know it is blood, which can be described as royal, blue, cold or warm depending on your personal outlook towards your fellow man. Personally, I think blood takes a backseat to what actually flows through our bodies, that gives us the force of life we wake up to each day. Very simply put it is priority.

Each day we have 24 hours to do with as we please, a gift if you will that doesn’t need to be unwrapped nor have holidays and celebrations tied to it. There are routines we follow, places we go and people we see for the most part that take up a large block of that time, however, what we ultimately do with it is a priority of our choosing. It is in that choosing we determine who is a part of our life, what we enjoy, how we amuse ourselves or how we survive. Very simply put it is a choice.

A recent release of famous person I could care less about athletic shoes caused a riot in Texas. Priority for a huge mass of people was the ability to spend $160 on something that would cover their feet no differently than a $20 pair of shoes.  The choice may have been due to ego or the chance to resell them and make a profit, the latter being a choice of survival. Regardless the reason, the priority behind such a scene is pathetic in this world of less.

Some years back before a car accident sidelined me, I helped run a food pantry and learned that $1 provided 4 meals through our local Food Bank .  The facts were sobering and made me examine my priorities such as the $6 hairspray I bought out of habit, when a $2 one worked every bit as good and could have made a difference with 16 meals to someone in need.  It all came down to priority.

Family and friends are the same way, it isn’t up to us to insert ourselves into someone’s life forcing the fit, it is up to us to make one another a priority in life. Question is how many of us  make that choice, while prioritizing what must get done and get accomplished in the 24 hours we have.  I am certain several families in a certain Connecticut town are thankful they made their child a priority on the last morning they shared. They made a priority to laugh or have a special breakfast, prepare for an after school activity or just celebrate the love they shared in those unknowing last hours. We will never know their lives; we will never walk in their shoes but we can know how they value the choices they made.

24 hours seems like a huge amount of time when we are alone or under a deadline to finish something. The reality of how small that block of existence really is we never comprehend until it is too late. We all comment on how someone has grown so fast or the exasperation of when did that get built?  However, the simple truth is life continues to move forward, one hand in front of the other across a never changing face on a clock, and for the most part we never notice how fast. That is a fact pure and simple.

So as this last week of 2012 ends and we look towards a new year of individual 24 hour blocks of time, consider how you will prioritize those seconds, minutes and hours. Will they be to help someone, share and make new memories with family to later hold dear when their time has run out? Will you make a difference and take a chance or will you just continue putting that one foot in front of the other until the blocks are gone and nothing worthwhile was ever built?

If there is one thing recent events have again pointed out it is that like a clock our hands work best moving forward when we put ourselves second. The priority is up to us.

Just like footprints along a Sandy beach when we are at our worst there is a spiritual belief that God carries us leaving only one set of footprints in the process. When we make a difference in someone’s life or share life together as a family there is also only one heart beating, which ultimately leaves a single mark on everyone connected. The choice is ours how we prioritize what will forever make a difference or if we block out what is truly the best choice at the time.