It’s so easy to forget what’s important in life. One day you will realize that the most important things in life are not things! What’s important is to be content in life, not with things. Sometimes you have to take a step back and realize what’s important in your life – what you can live with and more importantly what you can’t live without. It’s not the material things we have accummulated that will define us when we are gone. What people will remember is how you treated them.

Sometimes it really hard to focus on what’s important in our lives. We tend to let the petty, every day nonsense blue the view of what’s important at the moment. Don’t lose the passion for your dreams by letting doubt creep. Don’t compromise the future that you really want for what’s easy and available to you today. When everything around us changes, we find out who we really are. You don’t need to lose everything before you realize what really matters in life. You really don’t have to announce what’s important to you. How you spend your time says it all.

Life is like a camera. Focus on what’s important, capture the good times, develop from the negatives and if things don’t turn out the way you wanted, don’t give up – just try again. Be thankful for the bad things you have experienced in life. The bad things in life opened your eyes to the good things you weren’t paying attention to before. Remember that material things can be replaced but important people can’t. Spend time with the people who are important to you. “Too busy” is a myth. People will always make time for the things that are important to them.  Become a person that other people want to be around. Be known for the way you love, for your honesty and integrity. These qualities are important for all of us to strive for.

Life is short. Focus on what matters and let go of what doesn’t. None of us remember the headliners of yesterday. One day the applause will die and someone else will come along and exceed the previous achievements. Realize that the people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care. With these things in mind, I think it is important to try and find balance in our life. It is important to take time from all of our achievement-oriented tasks to focus on those things that will add so much more to our lives. Tell those who mean so much to you how much you care and love them. Do little things to make your family and friends recognize how much you appreciate them. Recognize that life is about sharing and not about what others can do for you.

As you get older you find out that true happiness is not in how much you make or how many degrees you have or how big your house is. It’s finding peace and joy and contentment in your life that matters most. When you focus on what’s really important everything else will fall into place. The two most important things to remember is:
1) Use things – not people
2) Love people – not things

Ask yourself the question ‘what’s important to me’ and then have the courage to build your life around your answer.