Take a look at your own life and ask yourself, what’s on my to-do-list?
Our lives seem filled to capacity with a plethora of errands, chores and commitments which often pull us in different directions — robbing us of the more memorable moments life has to offer.
In short we prioritize our lives based upon what we believe to be important and inadvertently forget about the people we always assume will be around when our to-do-lists are finally complete.
It’s funny how our lists seem to focus so much on taking care of responsibilities, yet pay little attention to taking care of the people who provide our lives with meaning.
Imagine turning off the television and tuning out all distractions to interact with that special someone who’s been sitting right next to, yet somehow has been forgotten along life’s journey. Or to regularly afford time to a parent or grandparent as a small token of respect and honor to those who sacrificed so much so that you could have a better life. Aren’t those priorities which deserve a top spot on our to-do-lists?
Lists are a great way to remind yourself to change the oil in your car, pick up bread and milk at the grocery store or your suit at the dry cleaners. But when do we ever remind ourselves to better foster the relationships in our lives? To take time out of our precious schedules to show someone just how valuable they truly are.
David Norris once wrote that, “How you spend your time is more important than how you spend your money. Money mistakes can be corrected, but time is gone forever.”
Another brilliant post, Craig. If you try to keep up with all the chores, errands and committments and family time is at the bottom of the list, you are often too tired to make any kind of meaningful contribution anyway. So, if we honestly ask ourselves how many of these tasks truly need to be completed and eliminate the unecessary ones from our lists, I believe we would find that the family time would quickly move up in priority.