Weekend Words – Getting What You Want

It seems that today there are a lot of people striving for “things.” Most of these things are of the material nature – cars, house, phones, clothes, technology, etc. Many people define themselves by their collections of things, somehow using this as a form of validation.

I’m here to tell you from experience that this simply doesn’t work. Reason: there will always be someone out there who has nicer things than you. Further, the pursuit of things will almost inevitably take your focus away from things of true value.

Some of the unhappiest times of my life came during the years I made the most money. I know, that seems contrary to everything we see and hear from our society about wealth, but it was my experience. I spent so much time focusing on my ambition to have it all that I lost myself in the process. I lost sight of the things that should have mattered most in my life.

Of all of these things that I lost sight of, the one that hurts the most is my relationship with my daughter. I let my selfish, ego-driven behavior lead me to focus on other things and neglect our relationship. Although we have a wonderful relationship now, we lost some valuable years that we can’t get back.

My pursuit of wealth and ambition was interrupted when my father passed away. Talk about an awakening. As I went through the grieving process I realized how much he had meant to me and, more importantly, why he had meant so much to me. He was everything that I, at this point in my life, was not. Money and things meant little to him. Family was what mattered most in his world. The pain I felt was compounded by the memories of all of the examples he had set for me to learn from and live by. They say that good can often come from bad situations. My father’s death was one of the worst situations of my life, but it shook me to my core and helped me re-focus my priorities on the things that really matter.

Learn from my mistakes. We’re in the midst of an economic struggle; I don’t want to minimize the very real challenges being faced by a lot of people out there. But we can take this bad situation and get something good out of it by re-focusing on the things that really matter. “Stuff” is not one of them.

Have a great weekend,

Ro