What’s really important

The other evening I woke up at 2:00 am to let the dog out…..yeah, she’s getting old and like most old people can no longer make it through the night without having to get up to go to the bathroom….(at least that’s what I’ve been told happens. If I ever actually get old I’ll report back on whether or not this is true)

Anyway, after letting her out I went back to bed, but it was too late, my brain had woken up and didn’t want to go back to sleep. So, I got up and went in to the family room to see what was on TV. There was actually a pretty good movie on but I was having trouble focusing because my brain wouldn’t stop thinking..(I guess it needed the exercise since I usually turn it off during the day) and the one thing I kept thinking about was, what is really important in life???

I’ve been having this discussion quite a bit lately with several different friends and it turns out I’m not the only one wondering this.

So often we get so caught up in our daily “stuff” that we never slow down to think about these types of things. We’re so busy getting to work on time, doing our jobs all day, going to the store on the way home, finishing chores around the house, paying bills, etc., that we never stop and think about what life is really supposed to be like or what we want out of it.

Someone famous once said, “No man on his deathbed ever wished he had spent more time at the office” and I agree with that whole-heartedly. It’s one of the reasons I gave up sales and traveling and came to work here. I’m not on the road, I’m 5 minutes from work and although I get in really early, I’m rarely at the office past 4pm which puts me at home in time to ride my bike, cook dinner or putter in the yard depending on the day of the week.

I’m a huge believer in the fact that we should work hard and take pride in doing our jobs well and we should try our best to be good employees or bosses or managers. I also understand that in order to keep a roof over our heads and food on our tables we need to work...but we should also keep things in perspective. Our life and our work are two different things and we can’t let our work become our life.

I know that everyone can easily come up with a list of things that are important and things that are necessary so I don’t intend to do that here, but, there are some things that should be on everyone’s list of what's important...faith, family, friends and health top my list...what’s on yours?