Priority: Never Too Busy

This has been a challenging week, to say the least. My grandmother passed away last Saturday, the first time I’ve experienced an unexpected death like this. It’s all still a little difficult for me to process, let alone write about.

During the church service, my godfather delivered the eulogy. Combine that with the homily from the priest, and I walked away with two things that I think we can all try to remember:

1. Don’t be too busy.
2. Get your priorities straight.

My godfather talked a lot about how Nanny (what I call my grandmother) was never too busy for her family. She always had time for their games, or for diner or just to take an interest in whatever was going on in their lives. Now, I realize things were a lot different 30, 40 years ago — and the rat race has surely intensified since then. Don’t you often feel like you need to be working more? If you’re anything like me, you’re attached to your iPhone (or Blackberry) and working in the evenings or weekends. And, that’s fine — to a certain extent. But, if it’s getting in the way of spending quality time with friends and family, that’s problematic.

Which leads me to the second point: priorities. As the priest explained, we need to set aside time to reexamine our priorities. When we get caught up in the day-to-day grind, we tend to lose sight of the big picture. And that’s when our priorities get all out of whack. Even silly stuff — something like going to the gym to live healthier — falls by the wayside. Or, we rush through dinner because we have emails to answer or something else that needs to be written. (I guess those tasks are applicable to my job. But, whatever your career is, you probably have that long to-do list that follows you home, too. Right?)

For four days last week, I was out of the office — in fact. out of the state — to attend the viewings and funeral. It was amazing to see 500 people come to the viewings and all those people at the church. They were there because my grandmother was an amazing person — someone who was never too busy for friends and family … someone who had her priorities straight. That time away helped me get perspective — and to rethink my priorities. So, here’s to focusing less on stupid, trivial things and focusing more on what really matters in life.

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