Combining Simplicity and Gratitude prompts today. Gratitude for BFF Friday and for Sunday’s GBE2, Simplicity. Let’s see where this takes us, shall we?
Almost every young family or couple that I know today is way too busy. What does that mean? Well, they work full time jobs or maybe 2 or even 3 part time jobs in order to pay their bills and they have children and hobbies or friends and family that require some of their time away from those children or each other, in some cases.
The jobs these young men and women have secured in this crazy economy, might require long drives daily or perhaps they are required to travel, either regularly or now and then. Point being, that a job isn’t usually 9-5 anymore. It’s longer regular hours, or it’s nights instead of days or it’s two days off but not together. Some jobs require week-end gatherings or maybe they have to host parties for clients or co-workers in their own homes or at some meeting place. Meetings, there’s another time consumer. Meetings used to be on the clock during business hours and some still are, but many are now events at some hotel or conference hall located near or far from the usual work place. Those can take a day or two away from home. It’s obvious that jobs steal a lot of family time from today’s young parents and couples. I think that’s a shame and I wish they would all step back and reassess their life choices. A good job is very difficult to find right now, but these days of raising one’s family or building a foundation for their lives together are days they can never get back. It is a part of their history that forms their future and the ties that are not formed now, cannot be formed later. The all-encompassing jobs are better left to later in life when time away isn’t such a high price.
Being so busy day and night and not having real connection time becomes a way of life for so many people and they never realize what they have missed out on until they are living with teenagers. Teenagers they hardly know and who don’t know their parents; they just share a house and maybe a car. It’s a recipe for disaster. Teenagers are very difficult to get close to if they don’t have a background of closeness.
Simplicity in your life while you are creating your family is an excellent plan. Time for grandparents and time for siblings won’t be so difficult to work out. In the long run, the job is a job and can be lost in a moment. Your family is forever, if you allow them to be that important in your life. If you don’t simplify your life now, it will be way too simple one day.
Fewer obligations in your everyday life will allow you to grow and develop a good foundation for the rest of your life and the biggest prize for having simplified now is that you will have much to be grateful for in your senior years. You will have family who knows you and loves you. You will have people you genuinely care for and whose company you actually enjoy. They are the people who know you and share your history. The people you will tell stories with and about for the rest of your life. They are the top of your gratitude list.
Simplicity = Gratitude.
Live your lives with your priorities intact. You don’t have to be rich before you hit 50, but you do have to bond with people long before that to have a close and loving relationship for your lifetime.
Jo
