Blog 3714 – 01.11.2026
Time and Attention
The two greatest gifts that we can give to our family and friends are our time and our attention. One of the saddest song of all is Cat’s In The Cradle by Harry Chaplin with its haunting refrain, “When you comin’ home, Son? I don’t know when, but we’ll get together then, Dad. We’re gonna have a good time then. As I hung up the phone, it occurred to me, he’d grown up just like me. My boy was just like me.”
The greatest lesson that we can teach best by example is to invest our time in the people that matter most, our family and friends, yes, and even strangers for they too are only friends and family we have not gotten to know yet. And how to we do that – by spending and investing, our greatest capital, our time and attention on and in them. It is the investment that yields the greatest return.
The two great thieves, the cares of this life and the deceitfulness of riches would rob us of time spent with those we love. There will always be a list of important things to do, but at the top of that list, should be “Spend quality time with those we love.” And what is quality time? It is time we spend giving our undivided attention, making those for whom we care ever aware that we have no where else to be, nothing else to do, but to focus all of our love and attention upon them.
The great deceit of riches is the lie that if we just work a little harder, put a little more time in that we will make more money to provide a nicer home, nicer car, and nicer clothes for our family and thereby make them happy. What those who love us desire most of us is not nicer things, but more of our time and attention – more of us.
What makes us all happy is not more treasure, but to be treasured. We all instinctively know that Jesus’ words on this subject were true: “For where your heart is there will your treasure be also.” What we spend and invest our time and attention in most is what matters most. And what those who love us most want to believe is that they are our true treasure, not our careers, nor our hobbies. The greatest legacy we can leave to those we love is not property or a big pile of money, but precious memories of time we spent asking them about their dreams, really listening to them, and then sharing with them ours for them as well.
Jesus once said, “No greater love has any man than to lay down his life for his friends.” At the risk of being thought presumptuous for correcting the Lord, I can think of a couple of other things that show greater love than dying for someone and they involve living each day spending and investing our time and attention upon those we love, making sure that we check off that top box on our Things To Do List everyday.
Make time for the people that matter to you, today. Tomorrow is promised to no one.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David James White
Harry Chapin – Cat’s In The Cradle (Official Lyric Video)
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