It’s all about your priorities
Matt Pearl
I met up with a buddy of mine Saturday, and we spent some quality time visiting and catching up during a rare Saturday midday football game down in Kansas City.
Years ago, I was this man’s teacher, and later we coached basketball together in King City. He’s a teacher now, and I’m out of the education business; we’re also each married now and have households with multiple children.
You know the story: life got busy and we have not kept up quite so well as we might have. Nobody is to blame. Life causes us to prioritize, and if I put all of my previous friendships before my wife and kids, I would pay a horrible price.
Still, it’s nice to catch up with folks now and then, and I had a good visit with an old friend.
We compared notes on the state of education, life, kids and more. We talked about our 23-win season coaching the Wild-Kats over a pizza lunch. I had to laugh: we watched the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship back in 2005 or 2006–I can’t recall which–and our pizza order that night was two large pizzas; each of us ate one by himself. On Saturday, we each had a small. Age has caught up to us, I guess.
Now both of us are in our thirties: he’s just beginning his, and I’m about to leave mine. Our conversations don’t match the ones we had 10 years ago; we enjoy talking about old times, but it would be clear to anyone that each of our focus has shifted to family, career and home.
It’s the sort of showing of domesticity that drives many men to a midlife crisis. You remember the freedom of youth: going where you want, when you want, and doing it all without significant worry or obligation to any other person. It’s only natural to hold some sentiment for the days of life without domestic restraints. But without either of us explicitly stating so, I feel confident in saying we each feel we have found something better.
Living the life of the husband and father each day requires that the energy that used to be directed toward what I wanted, what I needed, what I envisioned now is pointed toward my family’s wants, needs and dreams. From a self-centered perspective, I suppose that means that I have given up my chance at my complete happiness.
But that isn’t so, for now that the people most important to me in this world–my wife and children–are present in my life, I cannot envision my happiness without them.
My friend put it well during our Saturday drive back up I-29 from the ball game, when he made reference to the preference his children and his wife hold in his life: “It’s all about your priorities, I guess,” is what he said, and he was right.
One human absurdity I have observed, and for which I have no patience at all, is that of parents in this world who misplace their priorities and create a good share of the problems that our race faces.
If you wish to be the most important person in your own life, then by all means do just that. But do not commit your life to a spouse or bring children into this world if you plan to pursue your own happiness and well-being above theirs. You’ll see nothing more pathetic than a person who has placed himself or herself into a position of having responsibilities, then neglecting them in favor of his or her childish, self-centered pursuits. We cannot recapture child-hood, nor should we attempt to do so by behaving childishly. Want to have a quality experience reliving youth? Try enjoying your kids while they’re young.
Matt Pearl owns and operates newspapers in King City, Albany, and Grant City.
