Many years ago, I met an early-stage business owner who was quite literally working himself into a heart attack and seeing nothing of his family because – as he put it – “I want to build a legacy for my family.”
And it hit me then, and it hits me now, as I see so many others make this same mistake. That is: ignoring the very people or things they care about, while telling themselves what they are doing is for those people or those things.
And I get it. As humans with drive and vision and ambition, we want to build and grow and change the world. And through all that building and growing and world-changing, we can lose daily sight of what is important forever, and what we have right now.
We can forget to enjoy our snippets of free time while we work hard to buy back our time. We can squander precious opportunities to be present with loved ones in our pursuit to build a legacy for them. We can forget who we are doing all this for – or why we are doing it – while they, or it, are right in front of us.
Getting the balance right, however we define “right”, can be a struggle. There are always trade-offs to make and priorities to juggle in the precious minutes we get each day. But in our frenzied minds and hectic days, let’s remember that we can be content with what we have, without being complacent about what we still want.
And let’s remember who or what we are doing all this growing and building and achieving for. And protect and cherish it along the way.
