What Really Matters

Been reading a book by a guy called John Ortberg actually qas a community we are reading a chapter every week then getting together to discuss it, a sort of book group if you like! The book is called "Everybody's normal until you get to know them" I have been reading chapter two and here's a great piece from it.

"I have never known anyone who failed at relationships - who was isolated, lonely, unconnected, had no deep friendships - yet had a meaningful joy filled life. Not a single person. The twentieth century was littered with people who achieved great things but never connected. People who accumulated vast amounts of wealth, fame, or power but never acquired an open heart. People who had a rolodex of contacts but not a single friend. Every one of them died with bitter regrets. Every one.

Conversely, I have never know anyone who succeeded at relationships - who cultivated great friendships, who was devoted to their family, who mastered the art of giving and receiving love - yet had a bad life.

No matter how little money we have, no matter what rung we occupy on anybody's corporate ladder of success, in the end what everybody discovers is that what matters is other people. Human beings who give themselves to relational greatness - who have friends they laugh with, cry with, learn with, fight with, dance with, live and love and grow old and die with - these are the human beings who lead magnificent lives.

When they die, not one of them regrets having devoted themselves to people: their friends, their neighbours, their children, their family. Not one."