Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
~ Winston Churchill
When I began this Happiness Project, my aim for February was to spend more time loving my family better.
I love my family more than ever, but have I been able to achieve the goals I set at the beginning of the month? The major goal was to create intentional steps to better connect with my family members.
I’ve planned my photo wall to celebrate the history and meaning of the people in my life. But, when it comes to actually spending time with people, I’ve made plans, but haven’t really carried many out.
Life seems to take on a flow of its own, even when you’ve made a decision to be intentional and to make better choices.
Editing a book, writing another one, selling a house and other deadlines for work, takes time and effort. Our lives look like some sort of tossed salad instead of a neat, decorated cupcake. (A strange piece of imagery, I know, but it makes sense to me!)
For a start, my family all have completely different schedules. Our daughter leaves home often at 5.30am and doesn’t get home until 6.30 or 7pm and is exhausted.
Our son works odd hours, sometimes starting at 6am and others at 12. He plays soccer and has training and games, as well being a youth group leader.
We work from home, but have odd schedules too, often having meetings and catch-ups in between working on our laptops in our home offices. We seem to be home a lot, but our adult children, pass in and out with increasing frequency and with less time actually in the house with us.
I haven’t seen my dad for months. My mother-in-law cares for my father-in-law and I wanted to help her more this year.
My aunt is a very independent woman in her seventies, but I want to spend more time with her too.
I don’t think I’m asking too much. All I want to do is organise a family weekend away where we can spend time together doing fun things. I would like to have a regular family meal together.
The phrase, The days are long, but the years are short, keeps getting into my head.
By the time I blink, another year will be over and at least one of my children will have left home, and we may have lost the opportunity to connect before they launch fully into the world. We will never be just this four again in the same way.
Solution?
I’m setting a few dates and whoever is available will turn up. I’ll send appointments by email so that everyone can link in with their calendars. If they can’t make it, I’ll just have to get over it and try for the next time.
I’ll set up individual times with each family member and won’t worry if we can’t all get together.
We did have some small success this week. We had lunch with our daughter on Friday when we were out helping her with some business decisions. Then, we had lunch with my son yesterday because he came home for lunch and I hadn’t been shopping, so we went to the local shopping centre café.
I’m going to put family events in the diary and make it work. If it’s not in my diary, it won’t happen.
Instead of family meals, we may have family coffee dates or dessert nights.
I’ve decided I can’t change the behaviour of others, I can only change myself, so I resolve to be better at this and work harder. Rather than being passive, I’ll schedule, and hope the others respond.
Success?
So, I guess it’s not a total failure, it just feels like it sometimes.
I haven’t said, ‘You should…’ to my kids for the last thirty days. I’ve wanted to a million times, but I bit my tongue and changed my language. I hope they feel more like they are being treated like adults.
I gave Valentine gifts to my kids and husband to celebrate the day of Love, even though we all think it’s a commercial fabrication. A rose, a few chocolates and a teddy bear are a small price to pay for a bit of loving joy in the house.
We’ve all had some good conversations over the last couple of weeks. The Happiness Project is causing us to talk about what makes us happy.
I guess happiness is not about being perfect or being down on ourselves because of some hiccups. It’s about heading in the right direction and continuing the intentional behaviour we seek to develop.
