Breaking Dawn: Sun Rise, Sun Set

We wake up each morning, take a shower, dress and go to work. What motivates us to perform this process? Paying our bills. Providing for our family. Trying to save money to afford the finer things in life, enjoyable activities. What is the ultimate goal? I'm sure there are some who are career driven, who thrive on climbing up the corporate ladder. "Workaholics".

I know one such workaholic. He is a salesman for a food product. He works everyday, most days from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm. He had a wife and a son. I say had because his wife left him and now they are divorced. Now he lives in a condo all alone, still working those long hours, but now with nothing to go home to. He told me that he drinks several beers nightly in order to unwind. Besides being a workaholic, was he also an alcoholic? Was it both reasons why his wife left him? His son got a brain tumor at age 6 months. He was now 14 years old still living with a brain tumor with limitations to his life. Could this be the reason why his dad threw himself into his work and was never home? So he didn't have to deal with his problems?

Sometimes working can be the problem and sometimes working can create problems. Even though we have to work, we need to find the time to spent with our spouse and our children. Working causes stress. Stress causes people to be in an unfavorable mood and the people stressed out spread this mood onto the people they love. Thus, causing material problems and problems with your children. Imagine if you worked one job all day and then worked another job all night. Would you be in a condition to come home and relax and talk to your spouse? No, you would probably want to go to bed and sleep right away.

How do we balance work and our private lives? We spend over half our lives working. I believe our own time is so very limited that we need to make the most of it. Why waste it fighting with your spouse or your children? What do people want to do with their free time? Watch TV? Read a book? Work out? Going out to eat? Going to movies? No matter what we choose to do, we need to save time to spend with our families.

When your children are little they are always home. When they grow up you never see them. They are going out with friends or going to sports practice or in school, and then they are gone. There is no turning back time. Sure, they will come home for weekends or holidays, but that's about it. Sometimes they won't come home, they will want to stay at school to do things with friends. After college they will move away or get married. Does that mean you just let them go and never call them? I feel that the bond with your child should last forever.

I work at a grocery store. Everyday I see older women with small children in their carts, their grandchildren. I think this is a very precious thing. There are some grandparents who don't do anything with their children or grandchildren. There is a fine line between taking care of your grandchildren and having them thrown at you though. I know there are some parents who take advantage of their parents to care for their children. Then it becomes a burden, not enjoyable.

"Live to love,

live to live,

live not to work,

work to live."

We need to enjoy life and our loved ones and not make working or our career monopolize our time. Make each moment count. If we are always in a hurry in life, there is no time to stop and smell the roses. Sometimes we are forced into stopping. We get sick or a loved one gets hurt or injured. Then we find we have lots of time to spend with them in an unfortunate way to get there. Events have to stop us in our tracks to make us realize what is important in life. If we are busy makes plans all of the time, we are missing living.

There are people who suddenly find themselves dying of cancer or another disease. They are suddenly stopped and realize they are running out of time, their lives are running out. There are always regrets. Regretting that you didn't spend enough time with your spouse or your child. Regrets that you didn't accomplish something you wanted to and now it is too late. We need to try not to have any regrets. There is a movie called "The Bucket List". It is about a man who is dying and sets out to do a number of things on a list that he always wanted to do. The list included seeing the Grand Canyon, flying in a hot air balloon and driving a great ride.