They say that if you want to find out what's really important to a person, look at her calendar.

You may want to look at your own calendar. Where do you spend all your time? Is it true that the things that appear there are indeed the most important to you? Or would you like to change your priorities -- start placing importance on other activities, and pay less attention to those things that presently seem to occupy your life?

A commitment to a life that includes prayer and meditation on an active and on-going basis requires a prior commitment -- that we stop doing something else that presently occupies that time. As Americans, we don't like to think about that. We want to invoke a mysterious process called "time management" to enable us to find that time for prayer and meditation without giving anything else up. What we are really saying when we make an attempt to better manage our time is that we don't want to give up anything of our present lifestyle.

It all comes down to what's important. Those of us who practice Step 11 on a routine, daily basis have determined that our practice is important -- important enough to give up something else in order to have time to do it.

What are you willing to give up?