Looking Ahead

I can not write the Looking Behind post without also adding this one. While I believe it's important to listen to the stories and connect with those who have gone before us in life, I also believe it's critical to connect with those who are to follow.

While this world makes our lives ever-increasingly busy, and our schedules are overwhelmed with appointments, meetings and events. We need to take time out, unplug from the non-stop stream broadcasting from the radio, TV, computers and internet. Instead, spend some time with others.

There are untold treasures in the quiet moments.

• A young babe sleeping curled up on a father's chest.
  
• An adult re-living the joy of finger-paints with a young child.
  
• Building things together with leggos, without using the directions that came in the box.
• Passing on baking and other traditions around the holidays.
  
• Sharing stories, and listening as they tell you ones of their own.
  
• Helping as they struggle to learn school lessons (and digging frantically through internet sites and other resources so we don't let them know how much we've forgotten since our own school days).
  
• Trying not to leave fingerprints embedded on the passenger side of a car when a teenage driver is behind the wheel.
  
• Connecting over a cup of tea or coffee with a younger adult as you listen to the trials and tribulations that you have been through yourself - though they may seem so strange compared to the way things were in the "our days."

These are some of many moments that impact both the elder and younger people who share the experience. These are the building blocks of life that connect us to each other, both before us and behind us. These are what we take with us, and what we leave behind.

What do we leave for the future to find?
Do we leave loving memories,
Or say we don't have the time?

-ESA