Today a friend of mine celebrated his 47th birthday. I met him when I was a freshman in high school so we are going on 3 decades of knowing each other. However, in spite of our high school, college, and post college lives together, I realized I don’t really know him as well as one would think. You see, our lives started to diverge when I got married and started to focus on my family. Sure, we’d see each other a few times a year, but it was mostly just to catch up — we didn’t do any additional “road building” in our relationship. And then he got married and started to focus on his family. And then we moved to Kentucky which leaves us lucky to see each other once every few years or so. Yes, there is Facebook and email and phone and text. But it does not replace time together. And the three decades of duration do not matter if there is no time together.
Which got me thinking — while we are the most connected society in the history of the world, do we really “know” each other?
And while I value this friend, he is not one of my priorities (posted about here in Friday’s post). What would trouble me is if one of my priorities — God, my wife, my kids — ended up with a duration relationship without the time together. I am sure that has happened to some families and people are moms, dads, and kids by label only.
I don’t want to be a label. I WILL NOT be a label.
So therefore, I will not only define my priorities, I will love and invest myself in them. And that requires A Slower Pace.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
