Getting More By Doing Less

Paul Morrone |
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By Paul Morrone CFP®, CPA/PFS, MSA

It is easy to get excited about an upcoming family vacation, a friend’s wedding or your favorite team winning the super bowl (sorry Giants fans, we’ll be waiting at least another year…), but I’ve made a conscious effort to take a deep breath and appreciate the little things that put a smile on my face. This trend started long before Kyle was born, as I began to realize my continual go-go-go type lifestyle was both physically and emotionally exhausting. Slowing things down was not easy for Jill or I. We’re used to running at full throttle, and I must say we were pretty good at it.

There was a perfect cocktail of social activities, work, weddings, vacations and family gatherings that dominated our life for the first 4-5 years we were together. Plans were made months in advance and trying to find an afternoon to relax was a difficult task, especially during the summer. There were many weekends when I looked forward to Monday because it represented a return to a ‘normal’ schedule, albeit only for a few days. It was a whirlwind, to say the least, but I wouldn’t have traded it for the world.

As we started to pump the brakes a little, the calendar freed up. We had more time to walk around the town green with a cup of coffee, get a drink for happy hour overlooking the water or stay in and make pizzas on a Friday night with some friends. We traded staying out late at night for getting up earlier in the morning, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. By the time Jill got pregnant, our lifestyle had slowed down considerably, and arguably for the better.

Now, we’re equally as busy as we once were, or at least it feels that way. But this time it’s an entirely new type of busy and our day is filled with diaper changes, feedings, catching up on TV shows and trying to find a couple of quiet minutes for mom and dad. I’m ok with it, and in fact, I enjoy it. I feel like I’m getting so much more out of each day, even though I’m not running around nearly as much. It’s given me more time to relax, work on our house, wash the cars and just catch my breath after a long week. While the ‘new normal’ doesn’t have the glitz and glamour of our pre-parent lifestyle, it does give us more time to focus on what’s most important.

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