The Scarcity of Time

While we are growing up we seldom realize the scarcity of time, nor appreciate the opportunities it provides us to get closer to our families. Thinking back on my youth I feel like I did not spend enough time alone time with my father or the rest of my family for that matter, and thereby didn't develop as many memories with him/them as I should have. It's not that my dad didn't offer, he offered many times for me to go with him fishing, hunting, and golfing. Unfortunately as a preteen and teenager when I evaluated the opportunity cost of going with my dad I didn't factor in everything I would be missing if I didn't go. Sure, it is true that my evaluation that staying home would provide more sleep, I wouldn't have to deal with the cold, and could spend more time playing video games was valid. Those are the opportunity costs I did look at. What I failed to appropriately appreciate at the time however is the time I was losing bonding and creating memories with my father. Memories that would have lasted forever. I'm not going to remember the extra sleep I got by sleeping in. I'm not going to remember staying warm at home on a chilly spring morning. I'm probably not even going to remember beating the video game I was playing. The most important opportunity cost I should have considered was memories that I would have remembered for a lifetime. That would have became a part of me. When we are growing up we seldom realize these opportunities, but as we see time passing us by we look back and realize some of the opportunities we have missed. Should we be upset with ourselves about this? No, let by gones be by gones. But we can learn from the lesson that we learned and make a determination to do better in the future. To spend more time bonding with family and create lasting memories. I choose to do better going forward.