Priorities

I am a selfish person and that was never more evident by my lack of desire to have children.  Up until about five years ago I did not want to have kids because I was afraid of how it would impact my life.  My wife, however, REALLY wanted kids so I decided it was something that I was willing to do.

Now that we have two boys, I have learned there is a level of love out there like no other. You hear people talk about loving their kids but until I had mine, I couldn’t imagine what that love was like.  And since selfishness is basically loving oneself more than others, once I had kids, there is no way I could love myself more than I love my kids, so a lot of my selfishness went right out the window.

Once an avid golfer, I hardly play.  Once a frequent movie goer, I hardly go now.  These things take time away from my children.

A change in priorities hasn’t been more evident than over the past few months and weeks. I have been facing the elimination of my current job and recently took a new job that starts next week.  This new job is a much longer commute, and the one thought I can’t get out of my head is that I’m going to miss out on things like a soccer practice or a music class with my sons because I’m stuck in traffic.  I really want to be there for everything.

Now on top of my job situation, my wife recently learned that she might be losing her job.  Once again, my thoughts went to how this would affect my boys.  She gets to work from home and can basically set her schedule as to when she goes into the office.  Impromptu trips to the zoo or museum are a regularoccurrence and doctor appointments are easily managed.  Plus there’s the obvious that she gets to be with the boys the majority of the time which is important to both of us.

If we really needed it, she could go out and get a job that pays two or three times what she is making right now, but this job allows her a good deal of flexibility.  We have even been considering her not working at all but then the concerns of not being able to provide some of the things we’ve been planning (private school, music lessons, etc.) pop into my mind.

I suppose I haven’t lost all of my selfishness.  I selfishly want the best for my sons.  Sometimes, I hope, being selfish isn’t a bad thing.