I have a couple of really close friends who I’ve known from school. We spent a lot of our formative years together. Conversations that we’ve had during our late teens and early twenties, really helped shape our thinking into what it is today. But that’s not the point. I met one of them a couple of years ago and like always, every time we meet, we never finish talking about all the things that we want to talk about. There is so much to say and at the end of the meeting, we go back feeling satisfied and elated. As we spoke, we realized that because of where our lives have taken us, we live in different cities, work different kinds of jobs and mostly, it becomes almost impossible to meet and catch up regularly. The last time I’d met this friend was about 3 years ago and the time before that was roughly another 3 years ago. We’d both just turned thirty then. So I reminded my friend that if we both lived to be 70 years then we have about 13 or at best 15 meetings left before we died. Of course that’s a really scary thought and we both spent time discussing how we could stay in touch and meet up more often.

That’s really the crux of what I have to say in this article. Think about those 10 or 20 people who really matter to you in your life. Look at how often you meet all of them. If your parents are in one country and you work in another, then it’s likely that you don’t meet them too often. If your parents are really old and you meet them just once a year during your annual vacation, then you probably have just 10 meetings left with them. If you have a really close friend and you both got busy with your own lives and you catch up just once every 4 or 5 years, then you both have just 20 meetings left if you’re really lucky. You might also have relatives who you really love, who care about you and whose company you cherish. Unfortunately, if you’re meeting them just during that occasional family wedding that happens once every 8 or 10 years, then you can do the math yourself and figure out how many meetings you have left with that person.

Make a list of the 20 most important people in your life. It’s likely that you’re already in touch with some of these people on a regular basis and that’s awesome. If you aren’t, then pick up the phone, call them and make definite plans to meet and spend time together. Life is about spending quality time with the people who matter the most to you. Our busy schedules, our fast track careers and our luxurious lifestyles are meaningless if what we’re trading for it is quality time with the people who matter the most to us.