I need to get over it…

Fellow SOBCon attendee Chris Cree recently shared a powerful reminder: Don’t wait for the funeral to visit. MP3 File This past weekend I went up north with my wife to visit my 83 year old grandmother, to say goodbye and I love you one last time before…

Thanks for reminding me, how important it is to tell the ones you love that you love them, no matter how “busy” our life is at any give time.

And thanks for not shying away from the tougher facts of life.

A guy has one little quazi-drama at his day job (my boss got himself fired yesterday morning and I got home at 3AM – Now off to Jacksonville, FL to go to another ship. It’s a whole post in istelf.) and the comments section goes wild!

Great stuff guys! I’ll address each of these this afternoon when I get back home. (Wow!)

As the others have already commented, I too really appreciate this post. Indeed, the death of a loved one brings up questions like these. We are reminded of the transitory nature of life, and it makes us look at our priorities to see if they are where we want them.

It’s a time of self-reflection, which it looks like you are spending quality time doing just that.

….Which segues to another thought that your comments bring up for me. If your father-in-law had 20 friends who visited him up until his death, I’d say that’s amazing! They made that a priority…..which also means they chose not to visit someone else.

I’m not sure that because we may go 5 or 10 or 50 years without visiting someone that it follows that we made the we’re-too-busy-to-visit excuse. Perhaps we have, but often (as you point out) we have a different priority.

Also, I believe that people that come and go in our lives serve different purposes. Those who stay or who remain with us for this moment are serving their purpose in our lives and we in theirs. When that experience is accomplish, is fulfilled, we all naturally move on to something or someone else. It’s neither good or bad; it just is.

At funerals, we remember the dead and how they affected our lives when they were alive. While many assume that we go to funerals or memorials to see or recognize or honor the person who has died (which is probably true to a certain extent), I have come that funerals are for the living, not the dead.

I bet those people who had not seen your father-in-law for years came to the funeral in support of you and the survivors, those of you who grieve. Even we who posted here express sorrow, empathy, and condolences for your loss.

That said, I think your points are well-taken and on-the-money, as far as reevaluating our own priorities in business and in life, so that we don’t wait until it’s too late to develop meaningful and lasting relationships. If we’re thinking only of ourselves and our needs and neglecting others just “because we’re too busy,” that’s one thing that we may need to reexamine. However, It’s perhaps a bit unrealistic to believe any relationship lasts forever, or that it is possible (or desirable) to maintain ongoing relationships with everyone.

We prioritize and decide who we are meant to serve and who is best suited to teach us what we need to learn in any given moment.

And then we move on.

It led me to use LinkedIn Questions to ask for “Best Practices” as it were to do this:

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/using-linkedIn/ULI/42674-1270637

Dan

Great post, made me think.