What does it mean when someone says you are the alligator closest to the boat?

Answer 1

Daily life presents all sorts of struggles and challengeswhich can become extremely overwhelming. A wise mentor one advised me to deal with the alligator closest to the boat. - meaning take care of the most urgent need first then proceed from there. If you try to handle issues further out (less urgent) then you will probably find yourself in a bigger predicament..... That is if you don't take care of the alligator closest to the boat first, then it's going to 'get you' while you're trying to deal with the ones further away.

I would also like to share that we spend alot of our lives dealing with things that are urgent, sometimes out of necessity, but we should try to remember to focus more on what's important. It's a hard balance to find. Just remember that just because an alligator is closest to the boat, doesn't mean it's really important.

In life our day to day problems most likely aren't going to kill or harm us, so we must try to give our attention to what's important b/c usually the urgency of something only lasts temporarily, but things that are important (spouse, kids, etc) stay important forever.

Hope this helps