Picturing what’s important

I was having a tough day. I had gotten only a few hours of sleep, I had received some feedback that I didn’t agree with, my hands were shaking for some strange reason, and I had forgotten my phone in my car. To top it all off, my day was starting to spiral out of control in meeting after meeting.

We all have tough days. I wanted to cash it in. I wanted to run straight to the nearest international airport and buy a plane ticket to somewhere warm: St. Thomas, Maui in the South Pacific, the Positano Coast in Italy, or even the Maldives in the Indian Ocean.

I simply wanted to get away. I wanted to be anywhere, but where I was at the moment, and then I remembered two pictures on my desk. One is a small picture of my wife and me twenty-five years ago on our wedding day. The paint on the frame is chipped and the photo is faded, but we’re both smiling and happy in the picture. We’re glued together at the hip, you can’t tell where my wife ends and I begin, we’re a team.

The other picture is of my kids, my wife, and myself. The picture was taken last summer. There’s nothing special about it, just all five of us in an impromptu selfie, but it means everything for one simple reason: we’re all together.

The pictures remind me about what’s important. They remind me why I get up every day and go to work. They remind me why I put everything into my job. To put it simply, the pictures in this instance reminded me of what’s important.

Of course, I stuck it out, I turned around and went back to work. I know that someday I’ll reach a point, talk it over with my wife, and decide to throw in my chips. It’s not today, it might not be tomorrow, but I know it will be some day. And I want to make sure my family is with me.