When there are many different things going on and each of them has an element of worry embedded within it, it can be difficult to know where to put our attention. When we feel scattered like this, it can seem as though we don’t have a chance to overcome suffering.
If we don’t have a clear sense of our priorities, then this scattered feeling can take hold and persist. If we choose to work on the wrong thing and what’s important gets left unfinished that would exacerbate the situation.
However, if we manage to choose the correct task, the one that is most important, then the scattered feeling will begin to dissipate because we are making progress in the area that solves our problem. Subsequently, we will begin to feel more calm and peaceful.
The Buddha’s method for priority setting is called insight meditation. The goal is to observe what his happening until we can understand the cause of suffering and then remove it from the root. So to put it another way, our top priority should be to develop understanding of the true nature of reality. Then we will always know exactly the correct action to take.