Good morning & happy Monday!
“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
– Vince Lombardi
I recently came across a couple of different postings on X (formerly Twitter) that got me thinking.
Here’s a link to the first one … (16) Defiant L’s on X: “How couples met 1930-2024 https://t.co/YlYL0dmhLT” / X
This is a time-lapsed chart that shows how couples met from 1930-2024.
Family, school, and friends were by far the primary ways couples met in the 1930s … roughly 60% of couples met between those 3 sources. Today roughly 60% of couples met on the internet.
I met my wife on a Christian online dating website in 2009 when such things were not quite so mainstream. You can say we were trailblazers 😉
This chart got me thinking about how different the world is now and how it has affected virtually every aspect of our lives … from how we do commerce to how we meet our spouses.
I’m 45 years old, born in 1980, and even in my lifetime the world has changed so dramatically.
I was talking with my 13- & 11-year-old children recently and realized they are completely unfamiliar with much of the world as I knew it was growing up. They’ve never flipped over a cassette tape. They have no idea what “Be kind and rewind” means. They’ve never looked up someone in a phone book or made a collect call. They’ve grown up never knowing a world where you couldn’t look at a screen and talk to someone anywhere in the world.
Back in my day that type of stuff was reserved for sci-fi movies.
Ok, I am massively sounding like an old person here. Time to move on! 😉
The second chart is here … (16) Massimo on X: “How Americans spend their day https://t.co/Mv9Ph6eawa” / X
This is a fascinating 2 ½ minute time-lapsed chart that shows how Americans spend their day, minute by minute. Everything from eating to sleeping to travel to leisure is covered in a very active, busy presentation.
The thing that jumped out to me about this chart is how little time was spent in the “family core” quadrant. It was moving super-fast, and I watched it multiple times, but from the best I could see, it never exceeded 6% or so.
Obviously sleeping, working, and homework took a good amount of people’s time, but leisure took up a large percentage of people’s day … even reaching north of 50% of us engaging in entertainment around 8pm.
Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with entertainment, it is a very important component of our lives, but I have to wonder if the level of entertainment we have in our lives and the priority we place on it is maybe a bit out of whack and even unhealthy.
I am so guilty of this far too often in my life. When I get done with work I just want to veg and do nothing. Staring at a TV, computer, or cell phone screen is way easier than engaging with family, calling a friend, or connecting with my neighbors.
But what will lead to a more fulfilling life?
I have found in my own life that when given the choice between doing an activity with friends / family or just chilling at the house my natural reaction is to opt for the chilling. Sometimes I do, and it’s not necessarily a wrong choice sometimes. But, when I force myself to go and be involved in community, to actually have human to human connection in my down time, I am almost always glad that I did.
I am far from having all this figured out in my life, and I have a ton of learning to do still in this space, but may I encourage all of us to intentionally make investments in relationships.
We spend a lot of time talking about investments in stocks and bonds, but don’t forget the vital investments in relationships. It will take work. I can almost guarantee you it will be messy at times. It most certainly requires intentionality. But it’s so worth it!
I believe God created us for community and I am concerned that we are choosing entertainment over community far too often, me included. This is an issue for me personally, and an issue for our society as a whole. So, let’s be aware of it, be honest with ourselves, and make meaningful, intentional steps to invest in the lives of those we love.
In simpler times, when entertainment choices were far more limited, we had much greater human-to-human engagement. Maybe we would be well served to spend a little less time staring at screens and little more time looking into the eyes of those we love.
I know this is outside the scope of financial planning, but it’s just been something heavy on my heart recently, so I appreciate you reading … or as Donald Trump likes to say, “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” 😉
Thank you for growing with me, I am so humbled to have such tremendous clients that I have the privilege to call friends.
Let me know any way we can support you.
Make it a great week ahead.