Don’t believe me? Think about it. Before they be- come adults—during those “eighteen summers”—you’re with your kids a lot. Almost full-time for those first years, but then still fairly intensely after that.
But how often will you see them when they move out and have lives of their own? Holidays? The odd visit?
The point my mentor was trying to make is that that time is short. Carpe diem. Before you know it, those eighteen summers are gone. Grab ‘em while you can.
But the lesson of quality time teaches us another lesson. It teaches us that the quantity of time, while important, is a pale imitation of quality. Quality time is the elixir of connection. It’s potent stuff. And the best part of something so potent is that you don’t need much of it to get a great result.
A few years ago, I donated a kidney to my father. One of the most critical ingredients of that process was my reconnection to him. Our eighteen summers had long since passed us by. We were both grown men. I had kids of my own, and we were going through our own summers together as a family.
But Board Meetings had taught me a lot about quality time. And so, my father and I began our own variation on the Board Meetings strategy. Decades after I was child, my father and I began spending quality time together.
It worked. Despite our ages and all the years that had passed, it worked. After so many, many years, I dis- covered that deep connection is a possibility at any age, between anyone.