Family, Friends and Relationships

 

I have made a lot of money and been a great success in business as I reach the age of 30. But I increasingly recognize that my life is largely superficial anyway despite these achievements. As one positive business profile on me said: I have no girlfriend, house or car but I make money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But I have hired and subsequently lost several friends and I recognize that family is essential. I just returned from my great grandmother's funeral and when she died at 98 years of age she has 3 children, 9 grandchildren, 20 great grandchildren and 2 great great grandchildren. At the end of the day and end of life, what matters is the relationships you have had and productiveness can be measured in these terms. I am a good businessman, but am poor at personal relationships- I can't get close to people since I am too selfish and preoccupied and busy and isolated. I have a lot of acquaintances in the mobile industry and my company and around my home town, but not all that many friends. I have a lot of friends around the world many of whom I cherish and seriously enjoy the company of, but I rarely see them. I do not share my life with anyone and I cannot find anyone that I want to share my life with who is available to share my life with me. I love children but do not have any, I love women but connect mostly only physically and not mentally to them which is not enough.

 

And so I work hard at business and companies and money making and put my efforts into that. Of course much business success is based on relationships too- its as much who you know as what you know in many cases. Many people who focus on relationships and family do not have great careers so it is difficult to have it all. What I have is probably harder to get than a life partner. There is not a great deal of point in being rich and having a great lifestyle if you have no-one to share it with. Wealth and work are a means to an end and not an end in themselves.

 

Once I reached 30 I decided to move from business success to include lifestyle and personal success. I purchased my first home and moved to some nice new offices. I rented a flat nearer to my friends in London and looked into buying a US property close to where many of my US friends are in Atlanta. I worked less and started to spend more time on my other lifestreams- Coca-Cola collecting and unorganization- hiring someone to photograph my Coke collection and an author to edit the story of how I built my company.

 

Finding a balance between work and life and ensuring that you dedicate enough time to family and friends is really important. These days, so many people spend all their time chasing the dime and working harder to buy more which means they need to work harder- the rat race which is a viscous cycle takes over and is hard to break once people get into debt.

 

It is often easier not to bother contacting family and friends regularly and takes a conscious effort to take time out from the busyness of everyday life to do so, but at the end of the day, whatever happens, those relationships will still be there. They are an end in themselves, and therefore extremely important to retain.

 

 

Author: Simon Buckingham

What do you think?

To make a comment to the author, send e-mail to simon@unorgan.com