On Taking (and Leaving) Priority
After six years of living in the DC area, I was ready to call this place Sam and I’s forever home.
In small ways, every day, I felt lucky to live here. Whether strolling through the neighborhood Nordstrom on my way home from work, the staff at Nighthawk Pizza already knowing our order when Sam and I walked in, hearing powerful childhood stories of life in Iran from the staff at Georgetown Rejuvenation, adding reggaeton to my Latin dance repertoire, or my daily fist bump with the manager of our apartment building — I felt at home.
In big ways, every day, I felt like I was growing here. Sam and I moved in together and learned each other’s routines and decorative tastes and even co-created our own. We got engaged during the height of the pandemic and realized we were made for the art and science of long-distance wedding planning with my mom manning the wedding headquarters in Naples, Florida. I finally leveled-up from PhD student to Dr. Warren and became a social psychology colleague in the eyes of my committee. I fell in love with my career in applied research and program evaluation, joyfully watched my cousin become a mother, and got even closer to local friends and family.
I always joked I would only leave this area for a really good reason, like an amazing job opportunity. The universe, albeit very busy with more important things than I, sometimes loves to listen in and toss us a challenge or an opportunity. For me, it was both. I received a federal government job at West Point Military Academy as their first Prevention Program Specialist. We are moving to New York in a few days, and I am knee deep in boxes, bubble wrap, and the emotional complexity of choosing to leave a place I love.
Whenever I’m faced with a tough decision, I tend to find what feels right through talking with friends and family (whom I deeply appreciate). As I was grappling with the decision whether to take this job, I noticed I kept coming back to a phrase, “My top priorities are job growth, creative hobbies, family and friends, and loving where I live.” There was no set order to them, but rather they were jumbled into in a collective basket of what’s important to me. I felt proud I had identified these core truths, but I also felt stuck. There didn’t seem to be an answer that let me hold all of these priorities at once, and I hated that. I wanted them all at the same time. Isn’t that what everyone else had managed to accomplish?
I started thinking about the concept of priorities, and I noticed we tend to speak about priorities as plural. “My priorities are X, Y, and Z.” I think identifying priorities is positive developmental milestone, and perhaps part of the beauty of getting older. But what happens what they come in conflict with each other? In my case, the best job growth opportunity was not in the place I loved to live. There were many great options in the DC area, and I mentally experimented with choosing one in favor of being able to stay here. As soon as I did that experiment, I felt the pang of realizing something doesn’t feel right even if you don’t want to let it go. The position at West Point seemed to offer a uniquely compelling combination of duties I’ve been yearning for — a chance to be a technical expertise, creative innovator, and developing leader. Although living in DC and job growth were both priorities, I realized I couldn’t have them both the way I wanted at this moment in time.
Priorities are not just areas of importance — they are also limitations. The very nature of priorities makes it so you sometimes can’t have more than one top choice when they come into conflict with one another. At first, I felt a wave of panic as I realized having one top priority meant grieving the loss of others. My brain and heart get very attached to what it loves, and when it comes time to let that go for a little while, they worry they’ll never have it again. This may be a remnant of the classic dichotomous (“black and white” or “all or nothing”) thinking that underlies many eating disorders. I thought back to my recovery work and tried to challenge that mode of thinking.
Yes — I literally talked to myself.
“Just because you are de-prioritizing something right now does not mean you can’t have it again. It’s still in your basket — it’s just not at the very top right now. At some point, you may want to rearrange your priorities, and that may feel exciting and scary. But you’ve got your basket with you.”
Ok, clearly Easter preparations had gone to my head with all this talk of baskets, but this metaphor works and I’m sticking with it.
Maybe the people whom I thought were somehow juggling all of their top priorities at once were arranging and re-arranging their baskets in the same way I was. Maybe at times job growth was most important, at other times proximity to family was most important, and sometimes simply loving where you live was most important. Maybe some people are able to harmonize multiple priorities at once. The point is there is no wrong priority — it’s a matter of what feels right at the time, and a gentle reminder that de-prioritizing something is not the same as giving it up forever.
I have a feeling we’ll be back to DC. If so, I can’t wait to see what my basket looks like then.
