Making Families A Priority

From August 25, 2003

For me, the month of August has blown by at incredible speed. It seems that there has been no time to spare anywhere. Every minute of every day has been filled with something that awaits my attention. If I ignore it and put it off for another day, the amount of time required to deal with it seems to double, rather than if I had dealt with it when I should have.

With all the time saving devices each of us has and uses every day, where did all the extra time we saved go? Our ancestors seem to have had plenty of time to spare, in spite of the fact that they worked hard every day, in order to be self-sufficient. They made their own clothes, they grew or slaughtered their own food, they even built their own houses. They had no cars, no telephones, no electricity to operate modern home appliances, no luxury items such as TVs, VCRs, DVD players, stereos and computers.

But they did have time to read to each other, to meet socially and to go to church. I guess what it really comes down to is priority. It seems as though a top priority for our ancestors was to keep the family healthy and strong, and they relied on each other.

The dictionary defines priority as something given special or prior attention. I like the Japanese translation of the word better. In Japanese, the word for priority is yusenjiko—meaning urgent matter.

With all our lives as busy as they are these days, and with all our time saving devices, are we remembering to keep our priorities in order? We, like our ancestors, must remember to make our families a priority. We can rely on each other even if we don’t see each other every day, or even if years go by and we still don’t see each other. We can use the telephone to keep in touch, the computer, or through writing letters.

It is the custom of many Asian cultures that the extended family is just as important as the immediate family. This includes parents, grandparents, even aunts and uncles. In fact, ultimate respect is expected in treatment of their elders. Let’s see if we can apply this simple principle in our daily lives. Let’s make each other yusenjiko, an ‘urgent manner’, and in so doing we will show how much we love and respect our family members. Call, write, email…. It only takes a minute, but the effects can last an eternity.