It’s been sitting on my coffee table for about three months, the book titled The Joy of Missing Out, written by Tonya Dalton.
I am always running from taking the kids to dance and music lessons, cooking dinner, shopping, working and PTA volunteering, and I haven’t had the time to sit down with a warm (notice I didn’t say hot, as that is not an option for a busy parent) cup of coffee and read this book until now that commitments have been canceled.
Ironic that now that I’m missing out on something (or genuinely enjoying life with my family), I finally have the time to read a book I’ve wanted to read.
For some time now, I’ve been saying to my husband that we truly never get to spend enough quality time together as a family, which is why this book piqued my interest. Some times, life flies by so fast that I even forget to tell him important things about our children.
More recently, I’ve made an effort to keep Sundays free from any social obligations so that we could spend time together as a family. I was hopeful this book would share some more ideas for shifting my perspective, and I got even more from reading it than I could have asked. Thank you, Tonya.
If I’m honest, the running around our family does is primarily my fault. I’m a YES person. I say yes to everything (even when there’s a scheduling conflict, also when I don’t want to go, even when it’s entirely out of the way). I think this is in large part due to my empathetic nature which makes me analyze how I would feel if someone declined an invitation from me. It’s how I am built, but this mentality doesn’t serve my very own family all too well. And quite honestly, I’m not sure that I’m being treated in the same manner by those that I strive to always make an effort for, but that’s another article.
So how has reading this book changed my life? Without giving too much away, because I believe everyone should read it for themselves, here are two examples:
Boundaries. I’ve never really set up parameters in my life, maybe because I’ve felt that boundaries are unfriendly, or have a negative connotation. I usually go with the flow, but after reading The Joy of Missing Out, I’ve realized the importance of boundaries.
In Tonya Dalton’s analogy of boundaries, she says if kids were in a schoolyard close to a busy road, they would have to stay close to the school. If there were a fence or boundary, they would have more freedom to explore and move. Wow! What a change of perspective on borderlines for me. Let me get those fences up now.
The other has to do with the time and the choices we make about how we spend our time.
Tonya Dalton put some great charts that allowed me to think about how I spend my time, with whom I spend it, and what is most important to me in my life.
When we analyze the time we have in our lives and break it down, it’s quite a wake-up call.
But, also there is a real joy in missing out.
When you focus on what’s important to you, the things left in the balance fall away, those things are not where your pure joy lies. With this laser focus, you curate your specific happiness. The joy you feel from working in a field that inspires you. The joy that is in spending quality time with those that you love. It takes some bravery, some tearing down of old ideals, but once you get there, every moment of your life becomes joyful. After all, isn’t that how we all want to live our lives?
No longer afraid of missing out,
The Momtourage
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You can order Tonya Dalton’s book The Joy of Missing Out by clicking here!