One author writes: ‘One of the strategies I employ is to block enough time so that I’m not thinking of what I have to do next. I find it best to wait until I can invest more than a few minutes in being with someone so that the person is not frustrated with my divided attention and tight schedule.’ If you keep robbing your loved ones of time, there may come a day when they have no time for you. Ask yourself, ‘Is this person worth more to me than the plan, project, problem, or pressure I’m dealing with?’ Learn to enjoy the moment and focus on the person you’re with. Ask open-ended questions that encourage them to answer with more than a yes or no. Listen carefully and ask additional questions. This helps people feel you are engaging with them and caring about their replies. Yes, your thoughts may flit into the future for a few seconds, but instantly push them back into the present by rejecting those concerns. You can attend to them later. Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate. There is great pleasure in doing this after you get used to it. The poet wrote, ‘I wished to live deliberately…and not, when I came to die, discover I had not lived.’ To make sure that doesn’t happen to you, heed Solomon’s words: ‘People should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labour, for these are gifts from God’ (Ecclesiastes 3:13 NLT). If you have to do with less in order to enjoy the people you love more, do it; you will never regret it!

© 2024. Written by Bob and Debby Gass. Used by permission under licence from UCB International.