Making Time for Fun
I recently had the opportunity to go skiing with a few of our boys at Snowbird. There was a lot of new snow that had dropped and we all had a great time. As we were driving back, I thought of how much I had learned about these boys in our short little ski trip.
Now, I have known these boys for over a year and yet I felt so much closer to them after a five hour ski outing. I started to question myself. Had I not made time for them or not really connected with them over the year that I've been coaching them?
I came to the conclusion that I knew them as my students and they knew me as coach. That was the relationship we had built. It was a good relationship but not a very deep one. Somehow, we had managed to break through those titles and connect on a much more personal level. We were able to talk about topics that we had never discussed before. It was amazing.
So, I asked myself, "How can I connect with everyone that way?" I thought about my relationships with my two daughters, Mercedes, 20 and Tyana, 18. Obviously we have the titles of Father and Daughter but, was that all we had? I thought about the times that we had really connected. Almost all of the memories were those of vacations, ski trips, camping trips, game nights, and weekend getaways.
It is real easy to get lost in our titles in our day-to-day lives and miss out on more meaningful relationships with those around us. You don't have to plan a vacation to make those connections. It took five hours at Snowbird to finally make the connections that I should have made a long time ago.
I challenge all of you to try this with someone that you would like to connect with. It is real easy. All you have to do is make time for fun.
