A simple diagram of life’s priorities

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Perry Fitzgerald
  • Air Warfare Center Safety Office
NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. (AFPN) --  In my 20-plus years in the Air Force, I’ve run across a lot of people with their own secrets to success, and believe me, they are always willing to share their thoughts. These are sometimes very simple, and these are sometimes very complex.

Some of the grand plans to success are easily discarded 15 minutes after you hear them, but others stick with you forever. One strategy for success that a 10-foot-tall lieutenant general shared with me years ago has stayed with me. His simple strategy called for prioritizing your life.

In this prioritization, he set forth three simple priorities: No. 1 is your health; a close second is your family; and last is your job. Let’s look at them separately, but in reverse order.

If it is not obvious to you that the job you do for your nation is important, then it is time for you to wake up! Since Sept. 11, 2001, our country and military forces have prosecuted a war against an enemy who challenges the very freedom upon which this country was founded. No matter what job you do for the Air Force, you contribute to this great war effort. All our military forces have made great sacrifices in the call to freedom, and we will make many more.

It is going to be a long, hard road to victory, but as our president has said over and over, “This is a war we cannot afford to lose.” So, as Airmen, we must see the importance of our jobs and perform them to meet the highest standards.

Though I’ve listed your job as the No. 3 priority, it seems we have to push it up the priority scale to at least No. 2 or even No. 1 in these trying times. I find a quote from retired Col. Steve Arrington useful in this instance: “No one should put anything before their family, unless the flag is falling -- that’s a different story. Then freedom comes first.”

So, it is easy to see the importance of your job, but now let us look at that No. 2 priority, your family.

Being in an expeditionary Air Force makes it inherent that you are going to have to spend time separated from the ones you love. You had better enjoy the time you do have at home with your family, because these separations are, and will get, longer.

Recently, the standard air and space expeditionary force tour length increased from 90 to 120 days. Our air reserve component brethren spend as much or more time deployed as we active-duty Airmen.

But who are the ones there to see you off for each deployment? Who are the ones that send you those packages, letters and e-mails throughout your deployments and during the holidays you miss? And who are the first ones to greet you when you return? It is your family.

Now, think further down the line; who will be the ones you spend the rest of your life with after you leave the Air Force? The answer is obvious. It seems that maybe your family should move up the priority list to No. 1. But what good are you to your family or to your fellow Airmen if you’re in poor health?

Your health is so important that sometimes when you lose it or let it go, it is very hard to get back. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper’s “Fit-to-Fight” program has had an enormous impact on our Air Force. General Jumper noted that we had become a sedentary, stationary-bicycle-pedaling bunch of high-tech geeks. Now take a look around.

We are outside running; we’re lifting weights; we’re in the gym placing our bodies into modern-day torture machines; and we’re steadily transforming into a lean, mean fighting machine -- like a bunch of high-tech geeks. Seriously, we have made an incredible transformation in a short time to meet General Jumper’s Fit-to-Fight agenda, and we’re a better force for it.

Your spiritual health is also part of your fitness. Regardless of faith, we all need something to help get us through these trying times.

This physical and spiritual fitness will also carry you through the rest of your life after you leave the Air Force. With good health, you not only benefit your family; the people you work with benefit also. It seems that this health issue is justifiably placed at the top of the priority scale.

It should be obvious to you that these priorities shift places and eventually overlap according to the current circumstances you face. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you’re huddled together in a foreign land with your fellow Airmen, wearing only a Kevlar helmet and flack jacket as enemy mortars explode randomly around you, you will begin to see the great paradigm of which priority should be No. 1.

The key will be to figure out how to balance your health, your family and your job as you face the rest of your life and your remaining Air Force career. Even if you don’t use this simple method, find your own method to help prioritize your life. Hopefully, it won’t take a 10-foot-tall lieutenant general to get you started.