For those of us who have busy lives the worst thing is that moment when we realise we need to reconnect...Or for some of us its when our family -quite cheerfully- drags us kicking and screaming out the door away from the computer, the phone, the busy schedule that just seems to get more and more full.
Forced to do nothing but reconnect with our loved ones we're at first irritable, sullen even. Don't they understand we're trying to build something, our business, our careers, our dreams...? Too often we think, No by God they don't. They haven't got a clue what it is we're trying to do. We tell them - but its sort of like ships passing at night. There's a vague awareness of them but beyond that, they become a faint memory which stirs when its time to do bath time, homework, dinner. Do we as authors, entrepreneurs, business execs really need to spend 18 hours working to get ahead?
Oh I hear someone saying YES! Running our own business is a full time job, its a twenty-four hour thing. There is no time for procrastination or disorganisation. We must be driven. Must be willing to sacrifice ourselves for the greater good...and the bottom line.
But do we sacrifice ourselves or our families and personal lives? Recently, and yes I griped and moaned and glared my way through the first hundred kilometres, I discovered a rather shocking and horrifying fact. By burying myself in work I'm not sacrificing myself. No, I'm sacrificing the very thing which I'm doing this for....my family time. I love my family, they're why its so easy to get up in the morning. But I also have to realise they are also the ones whom I neglect because I'm working on the latest book or the latest newsletters for the month.
Half way through our trip, it hit me. I was without a computer, without my work, and I was relaxed. You wanna talk about a shocker - I spent 100 kms stressed out of my mind because I didn't have my computer, my writing, the galleys, connection to my promotion and social media...and slowly it sunk it while those people are important - I was with the ones who should always be my top priority.
Hard lesson to learn and one I'm still learning how to deal with. How can I, as a business woman and author manage to juggle my full time job, my business, my writing and still have time to reconnect with my family? It seems now a days we have so little time to dedicated to our loved ones we have to come up with plans, ideas, schedule in time to reconnect even in the most basic of ways. It has become a lost art on how we as a society connect with those living in our homes, part of our lives. And too often, we forget to think on how we are disconnected from them.
Perhaps its time to forget the business, forget the job, the career at least for a moment and do something silly be it go for a walk or just play a rounding game of cards or something that allows us to see our family and friends before us. Disconnect from the electronics and reconnect with the living, breathing people who make up our lives. Even if it is in some small way.
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