Meaningful living....

A few weeks ago I went to lunch with a friend of mine.  She is really in need of help.
Her dad is sick.  She and her brother are working hard to take care of him.  My husband and I were debating how could we help them.  We both work full time, we have family obligations and the list goes on. Needless to say our time is limited, but yet we both asked ourselves this weekend what is our true purpose in life and are we fulfilling it?

When friends or family need us how available are we?  Can we put aside the everyday life needs and help others around us.  Finding the balance in life can be a challenge.  Helping others should be a priority. Yet even knowing this, it can be difficult to be there for each other. How can we balance our personal lives while taking care of each other?

Attaining any sense of balance is a challenge - especially at the stage of life where you have young children.  How do we model helping others, and also teach when we need to take care of ourselves first?  Teaching our children to value humanity and kindness is significant.  So ... how do we bring this back to the everyday teaching we do with our own children?  One way is to show your child how to build mitzvahs right into your daily schedule.

We all have "drive time" built into our lives.  Imagine if your child used some of the afternoon drive time to make phone calls to your relatives "just to say hello."  Think about being the grandmother who gets that call every once in a while.  The best examples I've seen are when parents integrate acts of kindness right into their daily schedule.  And of course it is most important to explain what your kindness might mean for the other person.

As we practice every day role modeling, we reinforce the important message: being kind to others is  part of being a good human being. And also, it makes us feel good.

When your child comes home from school, it's a good time to ask "What did you learn today?" and show them that you value their academic progress.  It is also a good time to ask about "How was everyone in your class today?" Was somebody absent? It might be an opportunity to say "Let's send their family a text or a Facebook message. Let's tell them we missed you today, we were thinking about you, we hope you are well."

Then of course comes the flip side - we also need to be a role model regarding taking care of ourselves. There have been nights where I have wanted to jump in my car and drive to visit my friend's father, but it is already dark and I'm exhausted. I need to be content with myself for only being able to think of him and wish him well in my heart.  There are times when we all need put our own self interest first.  So while we strive to role model our ability to help and show kindness to others as much as possible, we need to also showcase taking care of ourselves.  It's important that they see you do things like how you exercise, how you need to relax at times and how you socialize with other adults.

May you reach out to a friend or family member today, may you be there for someone that is in need and may you include your child in this opportunity.  Teaching and role modeling empathy and care taking is an essential life skill.
Have to run ... I have a brother I want to call!