“How Do You Cultivate a Family That Flourishes?” - Matt Barnes
Video / Produced by The High CallingWe all know that the decisions we make at the beginning of our careers are important. They shape the ways in which we develop as workers and as people, setting the tone for what follows. This is what makes so many of us willing to make sacrifices in order to build a solid foundation for our professional lives.
But what about our family lives? Especially when work is at its most demanding, it can be easy to put our home lives on hold. As Matt points out, sometimes the sacrifices we need to make are the ones that build a firm foundation for our families. The choice is always going to be a difficult one, and it may not mean quitting your job to stay home with your kids, but making sure we invest in the people we love is a priority far too costly to ignore.
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TRANSCRIPT: Nine years ago, I quit a fantastic job at Texas Children's Hospital, a place that I love and adore, to stay home with my kids. It was something that for whatever reason was on my heart, that we needed to have a person in their life daily investing in them. That was the most powerful decision, the most important decision I've ever made, but also the most difficult one.
As my wife and I were kind of wrestling with the possible decision---me quitting a really good job---it kind of came down to, "Well, twenty years from now what are the things that we want to make sure we don't have to regret?" So, my wife and I said, "Alright, let's just make sure that we invest in that front end, the first years of life, and make sure that twenty years from now, if there's a problem---because we don't know how this is all going to play out---but we can at least say we put out best foot forward, we did everything we thought we could do." Certainly we could always do more, but for families there's something powerful that happens when the bonds of family start early and are strong early. That only comes through time with one another.
The demands, pressures and stress of work can put a huge strain on relationships with our coworkers. This 4-day plan from Theology of Work Project and Workmatters provides simple steps you can take to be more loving to your coworkers that will transform those relationships and increase both joy and productivity at work.