Balance...equally as tough

I just got back from a 2 week vacation to beautiful SUNNY Orlando, Florida. It was 80-85 the first week and 75-80 the second week. Boy that was "hard" to take (HaHa). We decided not to do any parks of any sort (Disney etc.) but rather just hang out and enjoy our time together.
Throughout the course of a day there are many competing factors that keep us from spending real, quality time with those we love. There are those necessary things such as jobs that keep us apart (even those may take an unhealthy amount of our time and focus) but I thought it would be important to point out those "unnecessary" things we fill our time with that keep us from developing greater relationships with those we say we love the most, our wife and children.
To start with there are the technological gadgets we surround ourselves with. I remember when cell phones first came out and what a big deal it was to speak to someone using a phone that needed to be hard wired into your car and required a separate antenna and only worked sporadically. Not anymore, everyone has one and it seems most can't live without it. Many people, especially those under 30, have the ear piece to never miss a call and their fingers are fast and furious in texting, to the point where there is a whole new language being developed (there was a young teen girl in youth group who told me that she texted about 3,000 texts a month). Then you throw in the people who have Internet access with their phone and you create a whole sub group who can't live without their facebook and twitter feeds constantly at their fingertips.
That's just the cell phone world, when you throw in the ipod, ipad, mp3 world you have another group who have buried themselves in their music walking around with ear buds in place constantly, oblivious to their surroundings. Move up the tech scale and you have wii and kinnect and all those gaming options. Keep going and you have home Internet and cable and the biggest televisions you have ever seen in many houses (wasn't that long ago that the 19" was standard fare).
Move away from the electronic world and their are still many other chosen distractions interfering with our special relationships, home, yard, car, pet, friend, church, volunteerism, and on and on the list goes. You might start to get the idea that relationships that are deep, intimate, intertwined and lasting are a thing of the past, something only a few might even still want. The reality is we display this truth every day, that relationships aren't a big deal. I dare say that if for any tragic reason we should suddenly lose all technological ability and be locked in a room with our wife and children we wouldn't know what to do.
Back to our trip to Florida, 2 weeks with no appointments, no Internet service (for one week) cell phone off and left on the dresser, no where to go and nothing to do but spend time with my wife and daughter...turns out to be the best two weeks of my life so far.