What's Really Important?

Many years ago I had a friend who told me about an experience he had.  He was divorced and estranged from his son because he could not accept his son's behavior.  He grieved greatly for the loss of the relationship with his son and was miserable worrying about it.  He discussed his concerns with a friend and the friend encouraged him to reach out to his son but he found it hard to do because he thought his son was wrong.  Finally his friend asked him what's really important.  When he thought about the question and searched his soul to discover what was important he realized that nothing was more important than his son.  At that point he reached out and rebuilt the relationship with his son. 

I have often thought about this story because we let things get in the way of what is most important in our lives.  Someone hurts our feelings so we don't speak to them or they forget to do something that is important to us so we get mad, and on and on it goes and we suffer along thinking about how they wronged us and we are miserable and miss them.  I have found if I will just stop and ask myself what's really important, then I know what to do to correct the problem.  Many times it is to simply remove myself from the victim role and instead of thinking woe is me I change my thinking and take steps to change the situation.  Other times I merely need to forgive myself and then forgive the other person to get to what is most imporant. 

So ask yourself, what is really important?  It is family, friends, acceptance, tolerance, truth, honesty and love.  Anything that gets in the way of showing love and appreciation for all of those qualities is not really that important.