Free for All

“The best things in life are free” or so the saying goes, but how many of us really believe this to be true? Is the latest flat screen TV free? The latest fashions, school fees, water and electricity, are they all free? Well, of course we know the answer to be no. So to work we go, to earn the dollars to have these things. Possessions we seem to be ever increasingly regarding as the essentials. Where in this materialistic society of ours can we truly find the things to make us feel happy and give us the fulfillment we crave, without the high price tag? Why haven’t we learnt to look within and make this happen for ourselves? Let’s get back to basics.

The first tousled hair, squinty eyed smile of the morning from a three year old is enough to melt the heart and set a great start for the day. Holding hands on the way to school, letting ourselves pick up on that excitement and energy that children seem to emit. Watching them for longer than necessary as they sleep, taking up more of the bed each night as they grow, or so it seems. All free.

The only payment we have to make is with our time. Our kids don’t demand anymore than our full attention at least once a day. Whether it’s at breakfast, a lunch outside together, or that all important after school chat, they just want to be heard. Of course as parents we have to earn the dollars to provide for our children, but let’s not put that ahead of forging a long lasting and meaningful bond with these little people whom we created.

Can we let go of the feeling of having to accumulate for our self-justification and instead let our experiences make us richer. Will there be a time when we book family time in our diary with the same importance at which we make it for everyone else. In our lives we seem to forge so few true and honest relationships, that when we have them right there just waiting to be nurtured and developed it’s too important to let the time pass us by. Our lives are too fleeting as we fill them to the brim with activities, that one day we look back and it’s too late to regain what’s lost.

Our children look to us for all examples of how to treat people, interact with others and become the people they were destined to be.