My watchword for 2012 is “intentional”. I am attempting to simplify life by increasing awareness of things I do out of habit. I am certain most of the habits are good. I bet nearly all of them started with the best of intentions. I am equally certain many of these same habits are outdated. They need to be replaced with 2012 versions. I feel being intentional in my actions and deeds will help me get from where I am to where I want to be.
“Where do you want to be, Andy?” That’s an excellent question and I am glad you asked. I don’t have an answer for you right now. I can share that life has felt more like this lately:
Consistent, yes...
when I believe it should feel more like this:
Just a wee bit more fluid
For people who do not think in graphs, I apologize.
Here’s another way I am examining things: I have five wonderful children. Two are grown and have children of their own. Three remain at home with Christy and I. We love them all dearly, and I am attempting to be more intentional about my relationship with them because they are all important. One way I remind myself of the importance of time with the children at home is to execute a T-SQL query each week:
declare @ChildsBirthday smalldatetime = <birth date>
declare @ChildsName varchar(12) = <child’s name>
declare @Childs18thBirthday smalldatetime = dateadd(yy,18,@ChildsBirthday)
declare @WeekEndsFromBirthUntil18thBirthday int = (Select datediff(wk,@ChildsBirthday,@Childs18thBirthday))
declare @WeekEndsBetweenNowAnd18thBirthday int = (Select datediff(wk,getdate(),@Childs18thBirthday))
print ‘Of the ‘ + convert(varchar,@WeekEndsFromBirthUntil18thBirthday)
+ ‘ weekends between ‘ + @ChildsName + ”’s birth’ + Char(13) + Char(10)
+ ‘and 18th birthday, ‘ + convert(varchar,@WeekEndsBetweenNowAnd18thBirthday)
+ ‘ remain.’
Executing this query at the time of this writing, filling in the child’s name and birth date, generates this result:
Of the 940 weekends between Stevie Ray’s birth
and 18th birthday, 474 remain.
Stevie Ray is almost halfway to 18.
This. This I find important. This is one thing I need to be intentional about. It isn’t everything by far, but it is definitely one thing.
Very nice.
This brought a tear to my eye… I have an 8 year old and 5 year old. It is good to keep this perspective so I don’t waste any fun time / memories. Thank you.
Perfect, beautiful. Thank you, Andy.
im using this code now to find out how many weekends I have with my kids. We know that our oldest is nearing that threshold.
thank you for thinking of this.
Excellent. With as busy as all of our lives can be, its very easy to lose focus on whats really important.
Andy,
Thank you for the dose of perspective. My results:
Of the 939 weekends between Chase’s birth
and 18th birthday, 128 remain.
Of the 939 weekends between Gavin’s birth
and 18th birthday, 662 remain.
–Audrey
Excellent note Andy. With my oldest son hitting 15 in few weeks I certainly appreciated your retrospective.
While I understand the perspective, may I point out that it doesn’t matter how many weekend remain. It’s what you do this weekend that matters. Especially if it is important to your kids, regardless of whether it’s important to you.
Nice very well said including graphs!