… What’s Important to You?

I was meeting with a group of friends today and we were talking about work and the rest of our lives.  None of us work traditional 9 – 5 jobs, and the lines between work/play and friends/colleagues are many times fuzzy.

We started wondering how much work was too much, if we were short-changing ourselves on play and rejuvenation, filling the tank so to speak.  We were almost defending our downtime, or the non-traditional ways we liked to recharge which sometimes required quite a bit of energy – like weekend retreats. Then the conversation took a turn to talking about what was most important to us in our lives.  What qualified something as work anyway?  Did it have to involve getting paid?

What’s work, what’s play, what’s relaxation? What’s important?

After meditating on all this for a while I asked myself the question, not “what’s important to me,” but “When do I FEEL important.”  Here’s what I came up with.

To be honest, I mostly feel important when I’m getting feedback from others that they think what I’m doing is significant, or big, or dynamic.

But what’s true for me is that the things I do that are most important are many times small things … although they might be small pieces that add up to the BIG things (like founding Bridges Connecting Communities) that get noticed.

For instance, when I post a beautiful quote or photo on my Facebook page, many times that is the thing that get’s the most feedback, or even more special to me, the thing that prompts people to say when they see me in person … I so love what you share on Twitter/Facebook, it makes me FEEL so good.

When I’m really present when I hug my son and can feel him melting into the love … that’s important.

When I see that my flowers in the back garden are parched and I water them … that’s important.

When I exchange a moment, a smile and a laugh with the spunky black checkout girl at Whole Foods, that’s important.

When I think about the fact that I just wrote “black girl” and I wouldn’t have written “white girl” as a qualifier … that’s important.

It’s important that we’re finally getting to the place in our culture that we see those racial differences, or tags, we give people unconsciously.  Yes, the big things like the speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., and the marches of tens of thousands he inspired, are important.  But the tens of thousands of small indignities that preceded MLK’s stand, and the tens of thousands of moments of grace, understanding and compassion that have followed “I Have A Dream”–  those moments, while much smaller perhaps, are just as important, perhaps more so.

But really, important is just a word.  It’s the act, the feelings, the understanding that’s truly important to me.  Not the label.

So Bridge Builders, what’s important to you in your life?  When do feel you’ve struck a good balance?

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Cheryl Schirillo is an internet entrepreneur, pr/marketing consultant, mom of two teenage boys, scuba diver, swing dancer, ultimate frisbee player, StoryLine creator, and founder of this web site, Bridges Connecting Communities (www.MyBridges.net)

MyBridges.net is a news & events web site for the Triad … a Community Blog if you will : )

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