Give of Yourself in the Season of Giving

By Tom Bryson
Immediate Past President 3CMA | Director of Communications, City of Farmers Branch, Texas

Part of the gig when you’re an old guy is you start to have people you know shuffle off this mortal coil. First its family but it soon also becomes friends.

Wow. What a depressing way to start off a blog post during Christmastime!

I know, but hang with me.

Sadly the Christmas season can also be a season of loss for many. Sometimes it may come in the form of a shocking phone call when you least expect it, telling you that person you always meant to get back in touch with, is now out of touch. Forever. That’s not a regret you want to carry.

All too often the pages of the calendar fly off the wall like in a 1940s movie with such increasing velocity, it’s not uncommon for some of us to lose track of each other in the swirling vortex of career advancement, mortgages, having kids then putting them through college.

Suddenly, it’s years later.

Here’s the hopeful part. Especially in this “information age” there is very little excuse for not being able to contact those we were, at least at one time, close to. Most people, even if they don’t have a social media footprint, are locatable online.

Whether its childhood friends, buddies and girlfriends from college or folks we once knew early in our careers, we all have people in our past that were important to us, that helped form us into who we are. And although our past interaction may have been relatively brief in the grand scheme of a lifetime, it’s more about the impact of the relationship than how much time you spent together. It’s about quality, not quantity.

What better way to celebrate the season of giving than by re-establishing a relationship with someone you’ve been meaning to get in touch with, but haven’t made the time?

Make the time. You won’t regret it.

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