The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first or prior thing. … Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and start talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word we could bend reality.

—Greg McKeown, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (New York: Crown Business, 2014), 16.