Looking Back...

I watched the movie "Courageous" for the third time yesterday, and it is interesting how every time I walk away from that movie I am moved to think about life differently.

When the main character loses his daughter, he does some extreme evaluations of his life, and as a result begins making a plan for the future. 

Recently I have been thinking about this same concept - planning for more - and one of the questions that continues to come to my mind is, "When they are gone, will I wish I had done _________ more?"  You see inevitably, if you haven't noticed this yourself yet, people move on.  Relationships discontinue for a variety of reasons.  Change of circumstance, change of location, change of patterns, and even death, takes healthy thriving relationships and puts the brakes on them.  It is going to happen.  Your closest friends may move away (or you might move away), they will change jobs, they will leave school, they will begin new behaviors that keeps being together very difficult - if not impossible.  They will eventually die (or you will).

So the question is, "what is too much to do today that if they were gone tomorrow I will not look back on and wish I had done with them?"  For husbands and fathers, it might be the talks they need.  The relaxed time of playing they long for.  It might be the back rubs and non-sexual touches your wife desires.  I might mean going to ball games, concerts, presentations, etc that the kids are involved in.  It might mean taking dance lessons with your wife (because she wants to). What is too much?

In the movie, the guy chooses not to dance with his daughter, an activity that might have taken a minute or two, but after she was gone, it was a constant reminder of his failure as a father - just a few minutes would have changed his outlook.

I say all of this to say - when life gets busy, when we are tired, when we start to get selfish, we don't ask this question, and eventually could end up with regrets that would have just taken a few more minutes to do.  What is it that is too much for you?  What is it others around you long for or need that you tend to hold on to or withhold from them that if they were gone tomorrow you might wish you had not withheld?

Live a life of No Regrets - Love Well.