The Empty Chair

There is a chair at a table somewhere with your name on it. The people sitting around it are not waiting forever.

Your wife. Your kids. The friends who knew you before any of it.

You think you are building something. You are. You are building a life with the people who matter least in the seats of the people who matter most.

The client gets the meeting. The inbox gets the morning. The algorithm gets the evening.

This is the trade you are making. Hour by hour. Day by day. You did not sign anything. You agreed anyway.

Your daughter will remember whether you were at there for her prom. Your wife will remember whether you were present at dinner or just sitting at it. Your son will remember whether you taught him how to drive.

So will you. Later. When it is too late to fix.

Relationships do not die in arguments. They die in silence. In the space between conversations that get shorter and moments that stop happening.

Close the laptop. Put the phone down. Drive the two hours. Be at the table that matters.

The work will not remember you. They will.

Sit down before the chair is gone.

“Wherever you are, be all there.” — Jim Elliot