21st Century Family

What if we were given a life meter as a young child? Let’s pretend that there is a ritual in every family when a kid becomes an adult (let’s say 14 for the sake of this illustration) that they are given a “life meter.” This meter is simply a measuring device that shows exactly how much time they have. Just like Outlook it can show it to you in 25 yr increments or days or hours or minutes, whatever you prefer. Like a “Quicken Online” you can also get online and view it broken down into pie charts and bar graphs as to where you’ve spent your time. Everywhere you go you know and understand that your time is super valuable because you see the Life Meter counting down.

If you are a mom or dad that has children what does your pie chart look like with regard to your relationship with your spouse and children? What is your perception of time with your family members? How valuable is it and does it change with children as they go through different stages of development? Let’s say that your child is fully “into” their mommy and daddy at age four and then  they begin to lose some interest around 10 or 11 and then much more so at 13 or 14. What type of “value” do the years from 4 ish to 12 ish have? Now let’s pretend you have two life meters, one for your entire life and one specifically for your relationship with your family. You can also jump online and merge the two life meters into a single pie chart that will show you the total amount of time you’ve “invested” in your family relationships (broken out by type: spouse, child 1, child 2, etc) in contrast to the other areas of you life. The challenge here first is to see the incredible value of these years and specifically years with these people. The second battle is to bring the “investments” of time in line with the value.

Encouragement: Engage the battle for your time and make it come in line with the value you place on these relationships!