I know that I have a skewed view of life most of the time. I also know that my skewed view can be hard for other people to understand. Although I know some don’t get it, I honestly don’t understand
why they don’t get it. It really isn’t that hard.
Most people’s view:
Nice house
Nice family
Decent job
Nice car
Good looking clothes
Good friends
Great vacation destination
My view:
A home
Love my family
Work because I have to
If the car runs, I’m golden
Good looking clothes really do hang on the racks at Goodwill
ONLY good friends…those who bring drama get gone
Best vacation spot? Anywhere my family is…yes, that includes our living room.
I don’t crave the fancy house in the just right neighborhood, the shiny new car, the prestigious job, the best vacation destination, simply so I can brag. I want what matters. That fancy house and car, the job and the vacation…those are all material things. Just stuff. I don’t need ‘stuff’. I need the love and time of my family. Time with those I love. I honestly don’t give a rats A$$ about material crap. When the house burns down and the car is wrecked, the job is lost, and the vacation ends up sucking…I still have what was the most important to start with…those I love. So, as I walk down the path of my life, I don’t ever want to make those I love feel less important than a house or a car or a job or a vacation, because none of it matters as much to me as they do.
This is where most people say…”just because I want the nice things doesn’t mean I love my family any less!” and they become defensive. I am in no way saying that nice things are not to be had or that they are bad. What I am saying is that those things should not interfere with your time with those you love. If they are the most frequent thoughts rolling around in your head and the most frequent conversations you have with your loved ones, then you have traded spending time loving your loved ones, which you can never get back, for time conversing about material crap. Please tell me this makes sense to you?
If you are sitting near, try reaching out and take their hand, pull them close, tell them how much they mean to you, instead of talking about the ‘things to do’ list in your head that needs to be done to make your ‘material world’ perfect. My material world could fall down around me anytime it likes…I will not lose my smile because I didn’t lose a single thing that was important to me. Material things can be replaced or done without. They are not what make me happy, it is the people I love that make me happy.
I have had friends fuss at me because I do for my family…I mean, I do things for them, things they are capable of doing themselves, things that appear to others that I shouldn’t have to do…but that is the point …I don’t HAVE to do any of the things I do…I do them because I want to…I do them because it shows them I care about them and that I love them. I do them because, in my skewed view, when one stops wanting to go the extra step for another, then lines are drawn and distance begins. Besides, it goes against my nature to go to the kitchen to get myself more iced tea and not pick up the nearly empty glass from the table, refill that one too, and hand it back to the one I love with a smile on my face. Should the random acts of kindness and going the extra steps stop, I would stop smiling…that will be when my world falls apart…and the house would still be standing, the car would still be parked outside, I would still have a job to go to, and the vacation destination would still be where it was, but my world would have been destroyed.
I just don’t see what is so hard to understand. It really is that simple.
Every day is the first day of the rest of your life…live it as such…and for God’s sake people…STOP SWEATING THE SMALL STUFF!!!
Thanks for reading!
Brooke
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