Working to Tears
It’s tough to make
ends meet these days. We’ve all heard the saying that nobody every lay
on their deathbed wishing they had spent more time at work but it’s hard
not to work long days.
Studies continue
to show the negative impact on self and family of too little time spent
at home. The pressure cooker of long hours and extra jobs is boiling on
the fires of the need to provide more and better.
Some people just
don’t have much choice. They are barely making ends meet no matter how
much they work. Others don’t see any choice. I know I spent many years
working in fear that I would lose my job if I didn’t work harder and put
in more hours.
My wife put
together a life-history picture compilation on a DVD for my 60th
birthday. It was great and the family enjoyed it. The highlights were
there for special events, but even now my adult children comment on how
much I was gone. I was missing them at the office after hours and on the
road for days and sometimes weeks at a time. I was pushing that extra
mile to make sure I could provide. My income was both a blessing and a
burden that I see more clearly now my entire family was carrying with
me. Looking back I would have worked less and spent more time with them.
The choice: Work
versus stuff versus time:
What’s more
important to you nice stuff or time: time to decompress, time to
de-stress and take care of yourself, time to be with your loved ones;
time to grow as a person? Like many people, I was too buried in doing
the work to even ask myself this question. I measured quality of life to
a real extent in terms of what I could provide monetarily. And in doing
so I shortchanged the quality time spent with family. I did spend time
with them as much as I felt I could and we had some great times. But I
could have done better if I were less stressed and more focused on them
than work.
So my lesson is
the questions: Ask yourself what is more important to you. Then ask
yourself what tradeoff’s you can make to get more of what is important
to you.
If you are working
to have nice stuff, you have the opportunity of learning the pleasures
of frugal living. Our
savings ideas can make a huge difference in how much income you have
to earn to live a comfortable life. Redefine what a comfortable life is
and you just might have to work less.
It turns out that
even children want to “work” less. Those expensive organized activities
that parents seem driven to enroll them in come at the cost of not only
money and time but also of the freedom for children to develop and grow
with unstructured time. So instead of spending money and time driving
them all over the place, stay home and have dinner together. It’s the
simple things in life that really have lasting value.
Time with yourself
and your family can be worth far more than the income you might make
during that time. Still thinking about work? Understand that the better
you feel about yourself and your family, the better you can perform at
work. Quality of life wins. Don’t work yourself to tears.
Read
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Real Secret to Money for a better life
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