What's the Second-Most Important Thing?

It is easy to be able to know someone by asking what the most important principle they hold is. Or perhaps what is the most important object, or most important relationship or whatever other thing is for them.

I feel, though, that you can learn even more about someone by asking them, "What's the second-most important thing in your life?" By only focusing on the apex of importance, you know about what they value the most. However, when you add a qualification, not only is it relatively easy to surmise what the most important thing for them is, but also what they find slightly less important. Now, of course, it goes with the qualification that they have to tell you why it is not the most important.

What's the Second-Most Important Principle in my Life?

I immediately posited that balance is the second-most important thing in my life as I asked this question. Though balance is important, I believe that one must have a right relationship with their Creator first and foremost. However, as soon as I wrote that, it appeared to me that balance (probably) is a part of such a healthy relationship. Thus one could argue (and I really don't care to debate it out) that I do hold balance or harmony as number-one.

Perhaps it is passion. I can do nothing for a sustained period of time without being passionate about it for one reason (being paid to do so, as long as I find the task tolerable) or another (actually thoroughly enjoying it). Yet is not passion part of balance? An overly-passionate lifestyle will burn itself out at one point or another. Perhaps it is an overly-attached one. "The world's thy ship and not thy home" and all that. A passionless life is depression. And I've lived one side but not the other, but I cannot imagine that it is as pleasant as a harmoniously balanced mixture of passion and dispassion.

The Thomists have an idea that virtue is means to an extreme. The idea that humility is neither self-aggrandizing nor is it falsely debasing yourself into what you are not. Moderation is the virtue between gluttony and starvation. And so, I guess, it is an element of balance.\

I suppose I have not successfully concluded as to what is the second-most important principle of my life, but in thinking thereupon I become more aware of myself. The unexamined life is not worth living, says Socrates; Sun Tzu says [know thyself and win battles], et cetera.

In the Future

I plan to meditate on the transcendentals --truth, goodness, and beauty. I will write a longer reflection thereon eventually.