Urgent Versus Important Quotes

But Aristotle held a deeper interest for Boethius. With the knowledge of Greek steadily disappearing from western Europe, the need for a Latin version of Aristotle seemed more urgent. In fact, Boethius made it his life’s work. “I wish to translate the whole work of Aristotle,” Boethius wrote when he turned thirty. “Everything Aristotle wrote on the difficult art of logic, on the important realm of moral experience, and on the exact comprehension of natural objects, I shall translate in the correct order.”9 Boethius never finished the mammoth project he had set for himself (prison and death also interrupted his plans to translate Plato’s dialogues). Aristotle’s writings on politics, ethics, and rhetoric, along with his central work, the Metaphysics, had to wait another six centuries before they saw the light of day in the West.

We often find ourselves responding to what feels urgent rather than to what is important. Helping a child with homework after dinner may be more important than the business call that comes in and seems so urgent. If we pay attention to what is "important" versus what i "urgent", we are better able to counteract some of the pressures.

discernment about what’s truly important versus what’s merely urgent. When I start to feel overwhelmed by a task, project, or responsibility, I now ask myself how much it will matter this time