I ramble

Its difficult for me to try and lasso my thoughts. Bear with me. Life seems to move at a completely unforgiving pace, much of that would be my own fault. It seems like society pushes us to put our kids into every imaginable activity, and schools push to educate at elevated, faster levels. Finding the balance has been difficult for me. Somehow through the rigourous schedules I feel as if I have lost contact with human compassion and values. I create the next "goal" or the next task to be completed and just keep moving. Its like I never stop to think "what are the consequences if I just keep moving", what human value have I completely ignored to acheive the goal.
I'm always surprised at how many families don't have dinner together at the table, ever. Somedays it seems much easier to dish the plates out and everyone dissappears to eat in front of the tv or video game. Somedays, it happens. I try really hard to keep that to a minimum. Anyways, my whole point is that so many times I get caught up in thinking that I "need" to do or have certain things to be happy. This last year has been a giant lesson in values, compassion, and epiphanies. We have lived with less income this year then ever. We have given up almost every imaginable material object, or downsized and its created a new attitude of gratitude . Its brought us back to realizing how unimportant certain things are, and truly how important it is to be a good person. The pace has picked up, but I need to figure out how to keep the balance.