It's the Relationships

In 1992, James Carville, a strategist for Bill Clinton, famously coined the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” The point he was making is that while there were many things to focus on during the election, the most important and most obvious was the economy.

We have many things competing for our attention in today's overstimulated and social media-saturated world. It is easy to allow ourselves to fall prey to the stress and strain of our everyday life. These things can cause us to focus only on ourselves and our own desires. We become obsessed with staying busy, scrolling for the next media high, or posting for the much sought after ?“likes”, “hearts”, etc. on our social media platforms.

This causes us to neglect the people in our lives who we care about the most. Relationships do not happen by accident or in a silo. They take investment, they take time, they take energy, and they take work. Successful relationships occur over time by learning and growing together. This means that the people in our lives must take priority over our busyness, our social media addiction, and our selfishness. Strong relationships are earned by taking action and putting forth effort. Show me a passive approach to a relationship and I’ll show you one that is dying or dead.

While life can be complicated and can pull us in all directions, I need to remember the James Carville approach: It’s the relationships, stupid.

When we choose to focus on the relationships in our lives, we will make a difference.

Larry