Family Time
Many years ago I have been trying to build a better career, a better health, etc. and sacrificing family time. I used to negotiate with my wife the fact that I needed some time to myself. I needed to work harder, in order to achieve better results.
However, I noticed that my relationship with my spouse and children was deteriorating. My wife started telling me that there is a bigger and bigger psychological gap between me and my older son. She also told me I was getting a “bit” more aggressive.
She was right.
I did not notice all of that. That’s normal, I was living inside my head for a long time. I focused my efforts on two areas, and neglected my family.
I was taking my family’s happiness for granted. I was physically there but emotionally absent.
Now I decided to change this. I decided to slow gears and focus on my family more than on my career. I even now refuse to change jobs if the new potential job role would not bring me the balance to enjoy family time.
Decision without action is just a wish: I bought a Microsoft Xbox for my older son, and looked for games that include the co-op mode, which basically is a game mode where two side-to-side players share the screen. And guess what, al-hamdulillah my relationship with my older son got better and his mood is steadily improving.
Yes, I get the thought often that I should be studying or working instead of playing games with my son. But then I ask the question “what is more important: that my son is growing happy and builds a good relationship with me, or that I build my career?”
So think about your situation for a while. Do you want to have a brilliant career at any cost? even at the cost of your family happiness? Not for me. I definitely do not feel happy if my family is not. And career can be built at any time, if you have a strong “why”.
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