Do it now!

The key to a good life is having enjoyed and nurtured good relationships. The problem is that we don’t seem to have time for doing that, neither enjoying nor nurturing. As Stephen Covey said, “we get stuck in the thick of thin things.” The “thin things” is work. Yeah, we all have to, but our work often becomes more important than our relationships with our loved ones.

Let me state my case. You’re at work. It’s about 15 minutes before closing time when the boss walks in and asks you if you can stay an extra hour to finish up some unfinished business. What do you say? Do you tell her that your mom is flying in tonight and you have to pick her up from the airport? Do you tell him it’s your first wedding anniversary and you have dinner plans? Do you remind her, for the third time this week, that tonight’s your daughter’s first violin recital? Or do you call your spouse to announce your change of plans? It’s always your choice. Oh, I know it may be difficult to say no to the boss, but we have to be courageous if we’re going to have a good life.

Years ago, I used to teach a time management class where we’d get to talking about why we never have enough time for what we think is most important to us…people…relationships with people. The answer is we choose otherwise. We choose where we invest our time. Most of us will choose work over family and friends.

I had a very tough, but valuable, conversation with a very close friend yesterday. We lost a mutual friend this weekend. Neither of us ever expected to lose him. He was younger. Seemed healthy. All of a sudden, though, he’s gone. As my friend and I sympathized with each other, we both agreed that we should have stayed more connected, although we connected more lately than we had in years.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. I do hope, though, that you’ll consider doing what we all think about doing after we’ve lost someone…CONNECT! Take a minute or two and call or text or write or, better yet, go visit those people with whom you’d like to spend more time. Thank them for being who they are and for what they’ve done for you. Most importantly, don’t wait. Do it now!

Until next time, Be GREAT! You ARE!

¡HEIRPOWER!

bob vásquez!