“The days are long, but the years are short” is a popular saying in raising children. It reflects the fact that although every day of drafting children can be filled with heart -warming joy and complicated challenges, so that every day can be tiring, we actually only have our children in our houses for a short time. As the end approaches, the years apparently have flown by.
My first child has just graduated from high school. It was a dichotome event that deposited tears of both joy and sorrow. It is the end of a sweet period of life and the launch of another. . . But this new era will be more separate than together. It is a good, hard transition in the life that everyone with children will be confronted with. So I thought I would take the time to share some unexpected things that this expected transition has taught me about myself, my priorities and the past 18 years.
Starting
July 4, 2006 is a day that will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. Every detail of that day-of the preparations before I went to the hospital to what I wore (my yellow “event staff” shirt that I wore for all three births of my children) until the first words I spoke with my newborn son (are now favorite Bibleers: “Trust the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own concept. In all your ways, he recognizes him and he will straighten your paths.” Proverbs 3: 5-6) –Tersen a huge smile on my face.
Even in those early moments, when my heart was invaded by this fragile new life and fascinated by the power of his mother, I learned that I should start thinking differently and make decisions less selfish to experience the full blessings of marriage and paternity.
Early mindshift
As a young man I wanted to conquer the world of business and earn a Gazillion dollar. As an entrepreneur, I defined a lot of who I was about what I was creating or the problems I solved with my ideas and enterprise. My profession became my identity and I enjoyed my professional reputation with my colleagues and in industry.
And then. . . I have grown up.
I learned that I was much more important for my family than what I did. What really defined me was not results as a husband or father, but instead it was because of the investment of time, love and resources that I was willing to make with my wife and children. I started investing in those relationships more than my own individual success. In the beginning it was painful to have my desire for praises darkened by my desire to see my wife and children thrive, but it was good.
More information here:
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Live your values
As a few, my wife and I identified early that we appreciated time more than money and experiences more than assets (what we call ‘things’). We have established that we would make decisions based on the time costs and the experiences gained instead of the money costs or the ‘things’ that have been acquired. This mentality led us to make the radical decision to make our children home schools. This decision was not taken because we thought it would be better to train them (although it could); We saw that as a family it would give us more time together and offer flexibility to travel and have shared experiences.
Home schooling is certainly not always the best option (especially since it is a financial sacrifice to have only one income), but for our family we counted the costs and thought it was best because it enabled us to live our values ​​together and shared experiences. From the graduation of our son we went to all 48 consecutive American states and we spent months abroad in places such as Spain, Greece, Costa Rica and Peru. At every place we have sightsee and history lessons combined with serving homeless people and seeing life by many different lenses.
Much of this trips was done during the school year and it would not have been possible if the children had had a more conventional school schedule. In retrospect, determining our values ​​early and making decisions from those values ​​is something I am happy with.
Who will be my best?
We all only have so much time and energy to spend every day, which means that we constantly make decisions about where and to whom to spend it. In recent years I have grown one of my companies into one of the largest brokerage bearings companies for disability in the country. We had dozens of employees, a huge budget for our type of company and great success, as evidenced by the prizes we consistently won in our industry. I was a big question as a speaker, and the elevated praise we received did wonders for my ego. Most in my industry would have killed to be in my shoes.
Then Covid hit and we all went home for a while. While I worked at home, I discovered that my daughter’s breakfast, a quick game tag with my two sons between telephone meetings, and lunch with my family, was much more rewarding than the empty praise from representatives of insurance companies who just wanted more of my business. I was so forced by the rewards of working from home that I decided that I did not want to go back to the office after Covid. My business partners wanted at the time that we would all be back in the office, and in the end I sold that company. I chose to sell one of the most successful insurance brokers in the country to have more time and to share more experiences at home.
I had to choose who would be my best and I chose to invest it with my family. Choosing to spend my best time and energy to my family is something I now look back on and realize that I will never regret.
More information here:
Phase of life expenditure
The importance of real partners
What about finance?
Just before I spoke at my son’s graduation party, I looked around at all our friends and family, and I noticed how diverse the group was financially. There were rich people and people who lived a salary of salary. Yet we were all collected and we experience the same joyful opportunity that had nothing to do with the measurements of our bank accounts or pension plans.
If someone whose career has been in the financial sector, I can clearly see the power that can have financial resources. However, I am also aware that monetary sources are wasted without a goal. At every step of my career, my wife and I saw my job and the means that it offered as aids to pursue our ultimate purposes.
My job and income were not the final goal, but the means to experience life together. In the beginning this meant $ 5 dates for Wendy’s (the $ 3 Junior Bacon Cheeseburger and Friet Deal who had it at the time and $ 2 for the Dollar Theater in Lincoln, Nebraska). Later it would be a 10-day tour through Greece and Turkey for the graduation of my son. In both cases, and in all others in between, we wanted to use all the finances that we could to pursue our values. Looking back, I am grateful for every step and the finances we had at that time. Not because of the actual money, but because our values ​​were clear and the money was used to achieve our goals and to live our values.
So what now?
While I send my first child to university, I am grateful for the lessons learned. I have learned that there is a big reward to live out my values, to spend my best time and energy on the things and people I really care about, and appreciate money as a means to achieve my larger goals and not as a final goal. I hope I have passed on these lessons to my son when he leaves our house, and I hope that everyone who reads will be challenged, encouraged and inspired to evaluate the values ​​to make your decisions as early as possible in your life.
And despite all my failures as a husband and a father (content stored for perhaps another guest post), it is the memories of Quality Time and experiences that I believe that my family will remember the most. I hope the same for you!
What do you think? What lessons did you learn by raising a family? Did it all pass so quickly?
[EDITOR’S NOTE: Many thanks to Doc Insure and Matt Wiggins, one of our Platinum Level (contributing $8,000+) Sponsors for the WCI Medical School Scholarship, for helping physicians secure the best DI policies. This is the first of our two scholarship-sponsored posts for 2025. Thank you for supporting those who support this site and especially the scholarship. All proceeds go to the scholarship winners.]
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