Success Through Family
As you grow older and become more and more driven in what you want in life, it’s natural that you start to pull away from your parents and close family. It’s healthy to look beyond the confines of the nest and start making your own experiences.
But you can get so caught in striving, in the work it takes to reach your goals, and even in the new people that you meet along the way, that you start taking for granted the people that have always been there for you. After all, they have been there your whole life, it’s natural to assume that will always be the case. You might say to yourself, “they understand I’m busy,” or “they know how important this is to me.” The reality is that they do know and they do understand. That is one of the main reasons why they deserve your time, even through your busyness. No one understands your dreams so much as your family does. No one wants you to do more, achieve more, or succeed more. If you are lucky enough to have that be the case, that is the greatest fuel and gift you can possibly be offered. Your family has the power to lift you up in a way that no one else can. That is the greatest platform possible to propel you towards success.
Once you take a moment to realize how valuable that is, you will find that there is success in family. Having a good relationship with your family is important, for they will be there for you to lean on before, during, and after you reach what you set out to reach. They are the one constant as everything else in your life grows and shifts. Through new relationships, jobs, interviews, and school, they are there. They are stable and gentle vessels of guidance that are in most cases, undervalued.
That being said, it is important to examine family just a little closer. Family can go beyond your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, or those immediately related to you by blood. Many people don’t have the luxury of leaning on their blood relations due to loss or lack of care. But family goes so much deeper than that; in that it is the love that makes a family, not necessarily the blood. Your family can be a best friend from kindergarten who feels like your sister, a neighbor who is as caring as a grandfather, a teacher who watches over you like an aunt. If you are fortunate enough to have those connections, it’s just as important not to forget about people like that in your life as you go out and discover the world.
Don’t wait until it’s too late to make time for them. Even if it’s only five minutes, take those five minutes to show them what they mean to you. I can speak from personal experience; you never know what opportunities you’ll get to make it known. At the tail end of my senior year in high school, as well as into the start of my freshman year at PNW, I was very focused on starting college and all the changes that it meant. When my grandpa would stop by for quick visits, I’d rush the greetings. I knew he’d stop by again in a couple days, I told myself that I could visit then, when things were easier and I was less busy. But a “few days” came around and I was still just as occupied. There is no perfect, to-do list free day. You just have to make the time. Soon after though, I never got the opportunity again, as we lost my grandpa suddenly this fall. My grandpa was one of the kindest, most encouraging people in my life. I wish that I had taken the chance to thank him and let him know how much his love and support meant to me. It’s ironic that one of the main things that drives us to strive for success (making our families proud) also keeps us away from them.
It makes you realize just how precious even the little moments in life are. If you are fortunate enough to realize that before those moments pass you by, that is the epitome of success indeed. For, a strong, growing relationship with family and the priceless staple memories that go along with it is the most ever-growing, longest lasting form of success that you’ll ever come to find.
