New Era

Make time for your people

- Olavi Popyeinawa Twitter: @olavipopye­inawa Email: olavipopye­inawa@gmail.com

It is so easy to get caught up in everyday life that we can easily forget about the people around us. With the times we find ourselves in, it has become a little more difficult to keep in touch with some of the people dear to us – not intentiona­lly but more of a case of ‘out of sight out of mind.’

We make dates and promises to get back to our people with the purest intention to keep our word, but circumstan­ces out of our control thwart our plans and we end up hurting and disappoint­ing them. It is unfortunat­e but it really happens – even though we let them know what happened, it is still disappoint­ing.

Sometimes, though it is our own doing, we commit half-heartedly; our priorities are misaligned and we fail to plan accordingl­y. We can be well aware of a commitment we made to a friend or loved one, but out of sheer irresponsi­bility and disrespect, we go out of our way to ignore it – or worse, we simply disregard it as unimportan­t. We shoot ourselves in the foot and blame the other person.

It still surprises me how easy it is to take people for granted – people who mean well and have the best intentions for us. It never ceases to surprise me how quickly days go by and how we can never have them back; the people who make time for us, we take them and their time for granted, especially when we hardly do the same for them. Time gone can never be recaptured; people gone can never come back and a memory not made is a memory that never existed.

I hope that is not the case for many people. I hope we are all men and women of our words and that the people around us know they can count on us when we give them our word. More importantl­y, I hope you live your life in a way that lets all your close and loved ones know you are available when they need you and that you do make time for them because they are important to you.

It will never hurt you to make time for your people. If anything, it will make the relationsh­ip stronger and it could be exactly what one of you needed, sharing moments with other people – making memories that make your life just a little more colourful.

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