CAREER OR FAMILY?
"Career or Family" (excerpts)
EVERY moment in life, we are faced with a choice. Which should command our preference -- the demands of our job or the duties to our family?IF there is a board meeting today at the same hours that our son graduates from school, where should we go -- to the boardroom or to the graduation ceremony?
IF we have to make a very important presentation tomorrow, so as to advance our career, but our wife says she has to see the doctor on a suspicion of cancer, which appointment should we keep?THESE are the daily battles of conscience we have to wage, trying to keep a balance between our responsibility to earn a living and our opportunity to live a life. And our choices invariably reveal who we really are.
OUR preferences indicate our true character. Our priorities are the best indicators of our real identity. What profits success? I know that many of you out there would go for career on the pretension that after all, you are doing all these for the family.MANY of us, would rather become outstanding employees, model personnel instead of being doting fathers or loving husbands.
MANY of you would opt to perform exceedingly well in the office even if you work 12 to 16 hours a day, going home only to change clothes or catch a few hours of sleep.BUT what for? At the end of the day, what have you accomplished? What profits a highly successful professional or wealthy businessman if ultimately, he loses his family, wrecks his marriage or dishonors the name he will leave to his children?WHAT has a rich man accomplished if he has built a fortune and founded conglomerates of highly profitable companies and yet drives his own wife to vices or infidelity, his children to drugs and delinquency and himself to spiritual decay and total burnout?
WHAT matters most?
Look around you. The evidence is overwhelming and irreversible. Families are shattered. Marriages are broken. Lives are reduced to utter emptiness.EVEN as man advances in wealth and success, he deteriorates on the basic standards of joy, peace and serenity. As we all compete and struggle for power and possessions, we often neglect what really matters most. In our insatiable mania for supremacy over the rest, we often forget the most important things in life.
I WILL respect your choice. But as for me, my priorities are clear. Between career and family, I will always go for family. I can forego that board meeting and earn the ire of my boss or make a bad impression on my peers. But I shall not inflict a lifetime trauma on my son by sending him alone to graduate without his dad. I can forget that business presentation and lose a valued client or waste a career promotion, but I cannot leave my wife alone in her moments of anxiety.
MEANINGLESS.
WHY should a well-known public figure commit suicide given all his fame and fortune? Can his wealth and wisdom compensate for ruptures in his relationships?WHY should a wife of a famous politician commit adultery...? Is it lust or vain fixation for the pleasures of the flesh? Or is it the pain of being neglected and ignored by the husband she used to adore?WHY should a son cut his wrist or a daughter drink poison despite all the luxuries and pleasures they are showered with? Can money replace love? Can pleasure take the place of affections?
THE ULTIMATE HELL
TO succeed in career and fail in the family is, to me, the ultimate hell. John Grisham, that famous author of legal fictions wrote "The Testament," which tells of a highly successful industrialist who made billions of dollars but lost his family. In the first 10 pages of the novel, he jumped to his death from his multi-story building in front of his self-centered children. By his will, he disinherited all of them and bequeathed his entire estate to an illegitimate daughter who refused to accept it.THAT is the ultimate irony; those who lusted for money lost it. Those who were given all the money refused it. In all his dozen masterpieces, Grisham tells us about the importance of family. "A Time to Kill" tells of a father who went to jail for killing his daughter's rapists.
INDEED, we...should learn from the mistakes of others. We should straighten our lives and put our priorities in order.
I DON'T know about you. But as for me and my house, our credo is: There is no success in a career that can make up for a failure in the family.
BUT if forced to make a choice between career and family, I'll gladly choose the latter. This is my philosophy, my article of faith. I pray and work hard to live up to it.
INDEED, we...should learn from the mistakes of others. We should straighten our lives and put our priorities in order.
I DON'T know about you. But as for me and my house, our credo is: There is no success in a career that can make up for a failure in the family.
BUT if forced to make a choice between career and family, I'll gladly choose the latter. This is my philosophy, my article of faith. I pray and work hard to live up to it.
============
COFFEE and MAYONNAISE JAR
When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and the 2 cups of coffee.A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items infront of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."The professor then produced two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed."Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you torecognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things --God, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passions--and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. The sand is everything else--the small stuff.""If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you."Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always betime to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golfballs first--the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand."One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffeerepresented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend."Please share this with someone you care about. I JUST DID."
"Move - one step at a time, but always forward." - Anonymous
No comments:
Post a Comment