How to make Nirvana as a top priority of your life?

Question

Apart from watching dhamma talks, reading dhamma books and watching dhamma related youtube videos, and apart from telling yourselves that ' there is dukkha in life and you have to free yourself from the cycle of birth and death', how can one motivate oneself by making Nirvana as the top priority of one's life?

I mean how can I change the narrative of the perspective of the story of my own life and humanity at large so that Nirvana is all that remains.

How to strive single pointedly towards Nirvana and make all other undertakings of day to day life as secondary?

Answer 1

I am studying MN19 this week and your post resonates with the Buddha's description of his own path to enlightenment. It begins with a very profound view:

MN19:2.1: “Mendicants, before my awakening—when I was still unawakened but intent on awakening—I thought:
‘Why don’t I meditate by continually dividing my thoughts into two classes?’
So I assigned sensual, malicious, and cruel thoughts to one class. And I assigned thoughts of renunciation, good will, and harmlessness to the second class.

Intent on awakening, we focus on the skillful, following what leads upward. MN19 continues on to extinguishment. I hope you may enjoy this sutta as much as I am this week.

Answer 2

It depends on the company you keep.

Associate with people who focus on the holy life, and that will become your focus too.

From SN 45.2:

Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling among the Sakyans where there was a town of the Sakyans named Nagaraka. Then the Venerable Ānanda approached the Blessed One. Having approached, he paid homage to the Blessed One, sat down to one side, and said to him:

“Venerable sir, this is half of the holy life, that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.”

“Not so, Ānanda! Not so, Ānanda! This is the entire holy life, Ānanda, that is, good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship. When a bhikkhu has a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, it is to be expected that he will develop and cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path.

“And how, Ānanda, does a bhikkhu who has a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, develop and cultivate the Noble Eightfold Path? Here, Ānanda, a bhikkhu develops right view, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release. He develops right intention … right speech … right action … right livelihood … right effort … right mindfulness … right concentration, which is based upon seclusion, dispassion, and cessation, maturing in release. It is in this way, Ānanda, that a bhikkhu who has a good friend, a good companion, a good comrade, develops and cultivates the Noble Eightfold Path.

“By the following method too, Ānanda, it may be understood how the entire holy life is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship: by relying upon me as a good friend, Ānanda, beings subject to birth are freed from birth; beings subject to aging are freed from aging; beings subject to death are freed from death; beings subject to sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair are freed from sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure, and despair. By this method, Ānanda, it may be understood how the entire holy life is good friendship, good companionship, good comradeship.”