"Have to" or "Get to"

Sometimes I get an email that sums up my life at that very minute.  This one was about the things we HAVE TO DO.  And how we complain about them.  We HAVE TO schlep the kids to baseball and soccer and piano.  We HAVE TO fly to Mississippi for a dadgum business meeting.  We HAVE TO start saving or we'll never be able to pay for Junior's college.

But in this e-mail I got, Jon Gordon writes about turning those HAVE TO's into GET TO's.  As in, we have three healthy children and we are so blessed that we GET TO share these opportunities with them.  We GET TO go to Mississippi because there's a customer there who wants to do business with us!  We GET TO scrimp and save because we have a very bright child who will go to college and maybe someday invent something that will change the world.  (Or at least he will become self-supporting.)

I had been feeling put upon because my mom is 80 years old, and I HAVE TO help her get settled into a new senior living place and HAVE TO get her condo repaired and painted and fixed up so we can sell it.  And I HAVE TO go meet the AC man because her air conditioner just died.  And I HAVE TO go meet the real estate agent who is listing the property.  And I HAVE TO find the silver tea service which is lost somewhere deep in the bowels of my basement.

When the real estate agent called me after that meeting, she told me her mother had died when she was 42, and she thinks I am so lucky to have my mom still with me.  Do I realize how blessed I am?

Eureka.  I don't HAVE TO do all these things.  I GET TO.

At my son's high school, three moms died this spring from a variety of health reasons.  That's three moms who don't GET TO throw in another load of laundry.  Three moms who don't GET TO stay up late worrying that their child will drive home from the party safely.  Three moms who don't GET TO find a way to pay for college.

That's three daughters who don't GET TO help their moms move into a senior building.  Or try to sell their condo in an impossible market.  Or drive them to the doctor again.

But I GET TO, and it's a wonderful thing.  Wonderful, fabulous, worthwhile, meaningful, important, enriching, blessing.

Here's the link to Jon Gordon's site and his book -- The No Complaining Rule:  Positive Ways to Deal with Negativity at Work.