It is funny how life changing, gargantuan events cause us to put our lives under examination.  This view within ourselves can be the beginning of a, sort of rebirth, or at least a back to basics restart.  I think for quite sometime I have been in this modus operandi of go, go, go, without regard to what is happening all around.  See, when you over commit, you miss the things that are truly important, like your family and those memories are fleeting, so when they are gone, they do not float back around.  What could be more important then those moments around the dinner table when each kid gets the stage to let us know what happened in their world today, or the project that the nanny had to complete, or the field trip you missed due to some golf match, or, I should probably stop there before the list gets depressing.  The point is, when you miss something, it is a moment in your families timeline of life that is lost forever.  You will never see the look on his or hers face when they get the final spelling word correct or the time they scored the winning basket at the buzzer, they are all lost in the black hole of overcommitment and “I am just too busy.”  What could possibly more important then those amazing events of life?  Why did you have kids if you couldn’t place enough importance on sacrificing some personal event to be present?  In the grand scheme of things, we will never be measured, as men, by the size of our wallets, or the number of houses we own, or the 67 we shot on the course, no, we will be remembered by our legacy.  We will be remembered by what we accomplished as fathers and the life shaping lessons we taught our kids.

When these twins came cruising into our world, we were the over committed, the too busy, the weekly dinner party goers.  Our social calendar was inconceivably chocked full of “must dos”.  This was all too fun and exciting, that is till you slow down and realize what it is you are sacrificing.  How cool are the nights you spend on the couch, as a family unit, watching some silly Disney movie with popcorn?  The kids falling asleep on your lap and carrying each of them to bed and tucking them in for a long nights rest. What if you got to feel that bliss once a week?  How amazing would life as a father feel?  Over the past 3 months we have had these opportunities and relished in the ability to say no to outside events and spend some quality family moments together.  I will not soon forget the feeling of my 16 year old telling me how much it meant for me to take the time to be at an event, it will make you tear up, I promise.  If we can sacrifice, with a large practice to run and 7 kids (5 under the age of 8), what could anyones excuse possibly be, other than selfishness?  Please do not misconstrue this to mean we should not take moments for ourselves, just not all the free time.

I am realizing pretty quickly, that having these twins in this ginormous family, will shrink our social event calendar, and I am really feeling excellent about that proposition.  It will allow me more time to spend enjoying the one thing that truly completes me, my family.  There will still be fund raising events and date nights our, but those opportunities will be fewer, and actually more treasured.  The sad truth, is that in todays society it takes a life altering event to cause this rebirth of life.  We are in such a rat race to succeed that we forget what success even looks like.   Success is not contained in a car emblem or a vacation to some exotic hut with a personal chef.  It is measured by the love we feel surrounding our lives and that bright shimmering star in our children’s eyes when we come home after a long day.  Take a look at you kids face when you show up, unannounced, at their first grade play and tell me that wasn’t a great day.  If we center our lives around those successes, all the other extraneous stuff, we call success, will fall into place.