I get a junk e-mail every day from Rosetta Stone called ‘Word Of The Day”. This usually is a word that is rarely, if ever, used in normal conversation and the meaning is often not known by the reader. Today, a simple word occurred that I believe we all know the meaning of: “TERTIARY”. The definition: “Third in Order Or Level”.
The concept of being ranked in a certain order gave me pause to think about how we rank ourselves in the “order” of life. For those people that do not have a spouse, children, grandchildren and/or close relatives, it would seem commonplace to have that person not be “tertiary” in their order of importance, but rather, would rank themselves as Number One. However, for other people that do have very special people in their lives, especially children, the order of importance changes, and the person may self-rank as “tertiary” or perhaps many rungs down that ladder.
When we do rank ourselves ‘Tertiary” or below, that will often impact our focus on our own health. Perhaps being “Tertiary” will not allow for exercise time, planning/preparing meals and in many other ways, not focusing o our own health journey. Rather, our thoughts and efforts are directed at those people in our lives that we rank above our own importance.
On the airlines, the opening message we hear from the flight attendant is “In the event of loss of cabin pressure, place the oxygen mask on yourself first and then place the masks on your children”. Their point is that if you do not keep yourself alive, you will not be able to help your children.
I am not suggesting that we all go into a narcissistic mode and only focus on our own needs. Rather, I am suggesting that we all should not feel guilty spending time on our own health needs because of our own self-ranked “tertiary” or below status. YOUR health and well-being is of prime importance to your loved ones, friends and colleagues. Do NOT allow yourself to be “Tertiary” in your health care importance.
And in the world of music, there have been a number of groups that have three members but there always seems to be the one member that is third In recognition. When we think “Bee Gees” Barry and Robin Gibb sung the majority of the songs. The other brother-member, Maurice was probably “Tertiary”. So no “You Should Be Dancing”, “Night Fever” or “How Deep Is Your Love” today…instead here is Maurice Gibb signing lead on a Bee Gees song I never heard until this morning, “Suddenly”.
