There is something about family time that feels different when we finally give ourselves permission to slow down.
Life has a way of convincing us that everything is urgent. Our phones are always within reach. Our calendars are full. Work follows us home. Notifications interrupt dinner. Social media gives us an endless number of things to read, watch, and react to. Before we realize it, we can spend an entire day surrounded by people without truly being present with them. That is why I believe we need to unplug every now and then.
Not because our phones are bad. Not because our schedules are unimportant. Not because the world can simply be ignored. We need to unplug because the people we love deserve our attention.
Some of the best family memories are not carefully planned. They can happen around the dining room table. They may happen sitting on the front porch on a summer evening. They could happen during a drive when nobody is in a hurry to get anywhere. In my world, they most often happen on the back deck, or gathered around a dinner table sharing stories, or with more family members around a campfire, at the lake; those stories we have heard a hundred times before.
Those ordinary moments are often the extraordinary ones. We spend so much of our lives working toward the next thing. The next project. The next promotion. The next appointment. The next milestone. The next vacation.
Sometimes we need to stop chasing the next thing and appreciate the thing happening right in front of us.
Our children grow up. Our parents get older. Brothers and sisters build lives of their own. People move away. Families change. Grandchildren come. Circumstances change.
Nobody is promised unlimited time together. That is a heavy thought, but it can be encouraging. If we let it remind us that today matters.
Call your mom. Have dinner with your kids.
Sit with your spouse and talk about something other than tomorrow’s schedule. Take your kids or grandchildren outside and let them show you something they think is fascinating. Put the phone down and listen to the story that you have already heard three thousand times.
Laugh a little longer. Stay at the table a little longer. Ask questions. Tell stories. Remember old times. Make new memories.
Family does not always look like a picture-perfect holiday gathering. Sometimes family is complicated. Sometimes people disagree. Sometimes schedules make being together difficult. Sometimes the people we love live miles away.
That makes the moments we do have together even more important.
I think we sometimes underestimate the value of simply being together. We do not always need an elaborate vacation or an expensive experience. Sometimes what our families need most is our undivided attention.
There is a peace that comes from putting the phone away and realizing that nothing on the screen is more important than the people sitting beside you. There is a comfort in hearing familiar voices without any other distractions. There is joy in laughing until your stomach hurts over something that will never be funny to anyone outside your family.
Those are the moments we remember. Years from now, I doubt many of us will wish we had answered one more email or spent another hour scrolling through our phones.
We will remember the family dinners. We will remember the laughter. We will remember the stories. We will remember the people who sat beside us. We will remember the ordinary days that turned out to be some of the most important days of our lives.
So maybe we should give ourselves permission to unplug. Turn off the television. Put the phone in another room. Leave the laptop closed. Take a walk together. Cook a meal together. Sit on the porch. Play a board game. Tell stories. Do nothing at all. Just be together.
Life is moving quickly, whether we acknowledge it or not. The calendar keeps turning. The years keep passing. The people we love keep changing. We cannot slow down time.
We can, however, decide how we spend the time we are given. Perhaps the greatest gift we can give our families is not another present, another trip, or another perfectly planned event. Maybe it is simply our presence.
Put down the phone. Look across the table. Listen to the laughter. Hold the hand of someone you love. Stay a little longer. Those moments may seem ordinary today. Someday, they may be the moments we would give anything to have back.
