If anything, 2020 has taught us that we need to return to the things that really matter in life. Like dinners around the table. Like breaking out our grandmothers and mothers old family recipes. Like sitting on the front porch just talking the evening away with the birds chirping, dogs barking, and lightening bugs flying by. Like dad out hitting balls with the kids. Like evening strolls through the neighborhood. Like actual phone calls with friends and family, not just short text messages. Like gardening and preparing for winter. Like dressing up for no reason. Like actually caring about people. Like being proud of our hard work and accomplishments because we actually worked hard. Like kindness. Like respect on our jobs, to the cashier at the grocery store, and to those who protect us. Like Sunday family dinners. Like backyard cookouts and bonfires making s’mores and catching lightening bugs in Mason jars. There were so many good things of days gone by that have gone by the wayside.
Technology hasn’t done as much great as we think. There’s higher tech appliances than we’ve ever known yet food delivery services are popping up on every corner, and kitchens are for show. You can take a pill to get skinny, procedures to look younger, and surgery to suck out the fat, and diminish the cellulite, yet we live in the most self conscious, lowest self image society of all times. You can be a millionaire, and become famous for doing absolutely nothing, but being good at posting videos on Tik Tok and YouTube, yet more homeless, and hungry than we’ve ever seen. Spouses spend their evenings staring at their phones, and barely talking, and we wonder why 1-3 marriages are ending in divorce. Kids aren’t taught to respect, the value of working hard for what you want, or how to be thankful. Kids can’t even communicate these days. Kids feel like they can say anything they want with no regard for anyone else’s feelings. There’s no respect for anything. We’re so busy with what we have, how popular we are, what group we belong in, and how we appear to others to realize we’ve truly became people without character. We have faster cars, yet we’re always late. Everything is automated, and faster, but the quality of everything has diminished. No, I don’t think we should be proud of where we’re at as a nation! I think we should wake up, and if 2020 hasn’t done that, then I’m not sure what would wake a person up! Maybe it’s time to slow down! Maybe it’s time to get our debt paid, live within our means and focus on living simpler lives full of love and full of meaning! Maybe it’s time to work a little less, have dinner with our families, and spend more time talking to those people we’re blessed to have in our lives who actually bring joy to us, and less time getting arthritis in our thumbs, or index finger if you’re an old school texter like me! What matters to you? Can you truly answer that with some honesty and conviction? Who matters in your life? Have you told them lately? Are you building relationships of substance, or are they shallow, and not lasting? Are you going back to life as you knew it, or making some real changes in your life?
Only time will tell if this year has done anything to shake us, and make us see there are no guarantees in life. Only time will tell if we’ll continue to run around thinking about me, myself and I, or realize this world is bigger than any one of us. Only time will tell if our families are most important. Only time will tell if our emotional, spiritual, and physical health needed to be shaken to the core to wake us up! Only time will tell if we will begin to build relationships that feed our soul. Only time will tell if we’ll return to busyness that leads us down a road to anxiety, poor health, and poor relationships. Only time will tell if we return to the things, and to the people who truly matter. I’m afraid if we don’t, the future is not going to be a world any of us are proud to live in! So what do you need to return to? Got you thinking didn’t I?!
With love for you all,
Shauna
Shauna's Sisters 