Last week I wrote about Loyalty mainly regarding the workplace This week I came across a song and a story that focused very much on two of the key parts of Loyalty:
- Loyalty is built by being more reliable, more dependable and more faithful to those who depend on you.
- Loyalty strengthens our connection with each other.
The focus this week is very much on your immediate family and loved ones and the most important way we can build up and show Loyalty is with OUR TIME.
In the Willie Nelson song – You were always on my Mind – there is a regret expressed in “I never had the Time”
The Time to tell his loved one how he felt about her and how important she was in his life.
Another gut wrenching dose of reality was the story related in a Darren Hardy Daily. It goes as follows:
“The teacher at a Christian school asked her students to write an essay on what they would pray to God on what they would like God to do for them.
At the end of the day the teacher read one that made her very, very emotional. Her husband who had just walked in saw her crying – and enquired what was causing distress?
She gave him the essay from one of her students and asked ‘Please read this’
It read: ‘Oh God tonight I ask you to do something very special – make me into a Television set. I want to take its place and live like the TV in my house. I will then have my own special place and I will have my family around me. I will then be taken seriously when I talk. I want to be the centre of attention and be heard without interruptions or questions. I want to receive the same special care as the TV set receives – even when it’s not working. Then I will have the company of my Dad – when he comes home from work – even when he is tired. And my Mum will want me – even when she is sad and upset, instead of ignoring me. And I want my brothers to fight over me and beg my Mum to spend more time with me.
I want my family to set everything aside – every now and then – just to spend some time with me. And last of last all by being a TV I am sure I can make them all happy and entertained.
Lord I don’t ask you for much – I just want to live like our TV.’
At that moment her husband said: ‘My God the poor kid – what horrible parents she must have.’
The wife looked up and said to him: ‘That essay is our son’s’ “
- What would your kids or grandkids or special friends pray to God to become in order to get more of your love and TIME?
- Would they pray to become your phone, your mirror, your FB or Instagram account, your office?
- What would your partner or significant other pray to become to get more of your TIME?
- Would they pray to become your computer, or sports centre, or your bathroom mirror, or The Bachelor Show?
In one of my earlier blogs – I spoke about The Compound Effect. https://mariocalanna.com.au/the-compound-effect
This force is always working in all elements of our l lives – day after day. And depending on what focus or time we place in them – our choices will move us toward or away from our best intentions and our best selves.
Ask yourself:
- Am I giving too much time, attention and energy to the wrong things?
- Am I giving too much time to activities that provide short-term excitement to me but don’t actually matter?
- Are any of my close family or friends thinking about writing a “Television letter” to me?
- Will you one day need to admit that “I never had the time?”
For those who can make the time perhaps you could watch or watch again my 1989 Winning National Oratory –
“Your unknown limited time to love – is your most valuable possession:
Design your own good life – before Netflix, YouTube, NRL or Reality TV Shows – design it for you
Buy Mario’s Book “Design a Good Life”
From Mario’s website mariocalanna.com.au
Or at Calanna Pharmacies Woree and North Cairns
