A son walks into his father’s home office:
SON: “Daddy, may I ask you a question?”
DAD: “Sure son, what is it?”
SON: “How much do you make an hour?”
DAD: “Well, that’s kind of rude to ask. But if you must know, I make $100 an hour.”
SON (lowering his head): “Oh….”
SON (hesitantly): “Daddy, may I have $50?”
DAD: “No, because you’re only going to use the money to buy some silly toy or some other item you’ll use for an hour and be done with. I work hard to provide for this family.”
SON (leaving the office): “Ok…”
The father watched his son leave, annoyed with the interruption.
An hour or so later he finished up his work and started to think what his son had in mind with that $50, and went to find the son laying on his bed.
DAD: “Are you asleep, son?”
SON: “No, I’m awake”.
DAD: “I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier. It’s been a long week and I took out my frustration on you. Here’s the $50 you asked for.”
The little boy sat straight up, smiling.
SON: “Oh, thank you, Daddy!”
Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some crumpled up bills. The man saw that the boy already had money. The little boy slowly counted out his money, and then looked up at his father.
DAD (somewhat annoyed): “Why do you want more money if you already have some?”
SON: “Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do. Daddy, I have $100 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? If so can you come home early tomorrow?”
…
This fable isn’t mine (I did tweak some language and descriptors) – and it’s not even new. I tried finding the original source to give appropriate credit but all I found was a bunch of sites with the similar story without sourcing. Sorry, original source.
Last week I had taken a long weekend in Pittsburgh with my wife, and was massively behind a workload that was embarrassing even before we left. After we got back, our four kiddos, maybe slightly above the average level of hyperness and rowdiness, were driving me slightly crazy. I work from home, and leaving the kitchen on my way into my office I said something to them along the lines of “I’m going into my office, and I have a ton of work to do. Don’t interrupt me – and in fact, pretend I’m not even here.”
Literally within minutes of closing the door and sitting down, my brother-in-law sent this fable in a group text to me and some others.
Gut. Punch.
It’s amazing how quickly we can lose sight of what’s most important to us, isn’t it? Ask me on any given day what is most important to me in this life, and I’ll quickly give an answer that includes my family, my kids.
How important did they feel when I told them to pretend that I wasn’t even there?
Not very.
There’s a ton of truths we can take from that fable and apply into our lives – but the one that I took most from it was how easy it is for us to lose momentary sight of what’s most important to us. I’m sure the father would have given a similar answer to me when asked what’s most important to him, yet in the moment of being asked for $50 he made some assumptions to what his son wanted with it and responded in a way out of alignment with what he would say is important to him.
We all need reminders from time to time. Put yourself in positions to be reminded on a regular basis, because tomorrow isn’t always promised to us, and the small moments add up to the large legacy we’ll all eventually leave behind.