Family first

We grow through our days working, doing chores and fulfilling the obligations of our lives. Now what the obligations of daily life are is quite relative. If we work 18 hours a day, play golf on the weekend and sit like a vegetable on the couch the rest of the time, we feel we are leading a fairly sorted life. But are the people closest to us sorted?

Have you ever juggled? Let’s just imagine for one moment that you are juggling balls of different materials. One is marble, another is wood, then rubber and finally a glass ball.



The glass ball is your family — spouse, parents, kids and close friends. The rubber ball is the time you spend on social media. The marble ball is your work. The wooden ball is your ‘me’ time, say playing golf with your buddies. The point of this mental exercise is to get you to pick the ball that you decide to protect the most. Just think long and hard who, when you are on your deathbed, will be standing next to you and holding your hand? Will it be your boss, your laptop, your colleagues, your golf buddies or your Facebook friends? None of the above. It will be your family and closest friends. The company where you work can replace you in a matter of days. However, a child can never replace his father or mother.

Most people leave for work early in the morning and come home late in the evening, exhausted and irritated. True success is in figuring out a routine where you are more efficient at work, you don’t bring work home and you get home before the family is asleep. When you are home, don’t turn into a couch potato or be grumpy. Your wife/husband and kids have probably been waiting all day to spend a few hours with you. You don’t have the right to carry your work into your family time.

We are obsessed with how we can increase our incomes. A child doesn’t need a bank account to feel secure and confident. A child just needs a hug and encouraging words from his/her parents to develop into a functional and successful adult. Children need to feel like they matter and that their parents give them time and attention. Even our parents, as they get older, need more of our time and attention.

I also want to point out that social media has taken over our lives. For many people, their phones, laptops and tablets are substitutes for human connection. We are willing to Facetime with our friend sitting in America or Canada but we ignore the person sitting right next to us. We immediately ‘like’ someone’s comment or tweet about the Ebola virus but no comment is made about how good your spouse is looking.

Even in work equations, when we have the opportunity to involve a friend or family member, we will do anything in our power to make ourselves look good in front of the boss. So we will underpay or get a freebie from them instead of doing what is right, which is to ensure that they get paid well. I have personally experienced this many times. Friends and family will ask me to host shows for free as a favour. I wouldn’t mind if it was for charity or if they actually had no money but nine out of 10 times I’ve turned up to these events to discover that they are fully-sponsored and everyone is getting paid but me.

As the well-known saying goes, charity begins at home. Then should we not start with the people whose bread and butter are connected to us? These days it is okay to spend hours giving outsiders emotional nourishment but even five minutes are unavailable for your spouse, parents and children. The people who love us the most are the ones who we take the most for granted. Food for thought I hope.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th,  2014.

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