Today my husband needed help. We have been working on replacing metal on a roof that requires our forklift and several of us to work. I have been at work with him while he works on this roof for a week and a half. Some days I get very frustrated, I think about all the things I need to get done for my business, the house that isn’t cleaning itself, and dinner that still has to be made once we get home. Everything takes time. As we were proceeding along today, it was evident that he didn’t have enough tar paper to finish the last little bit of roof, and that he was probably going to run out of staples as well. He needed to run to Wasilla to get supplies, which meant I had about an hour at home to work on the things that I needed to get done.
I came home and jumped right into getting things done. My husband needed me to make an invoice for the person we are working for. I then proceeded to start cleaning up a few remaining items in the entryway, then moved on to the kitchen. The saltshaker was empty, and as I started to fill it, I had the thought, “Is this really the best use of my time?” I thought that if I filled it later it would be better, but as I was filling and pondering, I thought about how regardless, this was going to take a certain amount of my, or someone else’s time to fill. I then continued on and finished the few tasks that I thought I could get done while waiting for my husband to call and say he was on his way home, and we needed to head to the job again soon. I ended up with a little extra time, if you can call it that, to get my blog post done, or at least started.
All of this has gotten me thinking about the moments in life, the moments everyday where we choose the path we will take, should I fill the saltshaker or sweep the floor, which is most pressing? Should I agree to go with my husband to work or should I stay home and work on my own business? There are so many paths that are possible to take, so many things we could be doing, and so much that, in all honesty, will never be accomplished in our lifetimes, because there are just so many possibilities. So how do we decide? I think a lot of it depend upon our priorities. I have talked about priorities before, and I have listed mine, or at least the biggest ones in a previous blog post. You can read about that here. I also wrote a book about how priorities, goals and habits all coincide with one another. You can purchase this book here: Becoming You: A simple guide to setting goals and accomplishing great things. So, how did I decide? One of my biggest priorities is my relationship with my husband. That is more important than my business. His business is also up and running and brings in the majority of our income, so when he needs help, that usually takes priority over my business.
But today as I thought about the reasons why, I realized that one of the biggest reasons is that I love spending time with him. We have a unique lifestyle in that he is self-employed, and I am trying to be such, which is super time consuming in a lot of respects and means that we aren’t always home together even when we are, but we also have the flexibility to shuffle schedules. I may get behind a little bit, but I can catch up. And over the years I have learned that, while making money is important, it is not the most important part of our lives, it’s the relationships we develop over time and by being consistently willing to spend the time, even if that means going to work together. Moments are all we really have, and in the end, the way we spend those moments will have the greatest impact on who we have become and what kind of legacy we leave behind for the rising generations. I will probably never be able to leave my children large sums of money, I will probably never be remembered by the masses. But if my children remember that I loved them, and I loved their dad, my husband and best friend, and that I would do anything for any one of them. If they remember that they were the most important thing in my life, next only to my relationship with God, and that including postponing my work when I can, I will be there to help them out and be there for them, well then, I have spent my moments in time wisely.
Stephanie Richey Art 
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