‘I have missed you, my girlfriend. ’Says the man.

‘Really!’ responds the girl while blushing.

‘I cannot wait to meet you this weekend.’

‘Me too!’

The weekend comes and the lady is very excited to be missed and to meet this man who has stolen her heart. She plans to arrive at the boyfriend’s place at around 10 am and return home by 5 pm on the same day. The lady also works hard during the week to clear any other unfinished business during the week. She doesn’t manage to finish everything, but she decides that she can handle the other items during the coming week. This gives her more time to spend with the person she loves the most.

The day starts with levels of excitement. The boyfriend and girlfriend both were excited to see each other. They started to catch up on what happened that week. It is such a magical moment. It cannot even be put into words. At that moment, they were giving each other the fullest attention possible.

This went on for about 30 minutes until the boyfriend’s phone rings. The girl was hoping that the boyfriend was not going to pick up this call, but he did. It was his best friend who called. They spend close to 10 minutes catching up on life.

The lady thought to herself ‘ this is a call that can wait or can be taken after 5 pm when I am gone.’ She decided to not say anything believing that this was the only distraction.

After this phone call, they resume the catchup. In the middle of it, the phone rings again, this time, it was his office. The girl was also hoping that the boyfriend will not pick up this call, but she was wrong. The boyfriend picks up the phone.

‘I have sent you a message on WhatsApp’-said the colleague on the phone.

The boyfriend hangs the phone and proceeds to go straight to WhatsApp. The moment he opened the WhatsApp the boyfriend burst into laughter.

‘What’s funny?-asks the girlfriend

‘The message that the colleague of mine from work has shared. It so hilarious.’

He spends now some time responding to the string of messages from this colleague. He also goes further to respond to some of the instant messages he received from different people.

The girlfriend is here thinking, this boyfriend of mine, spends Monday to Friday at the office with this colleague. Couldn’t they share these on Monday? More so, couldn’t my boyfriend respond to this message in the evening, or well, at the office on Monday?

‘Where were we?’-the boyfriend asks while fumbling with his phone

‘I was telling you about the challenges I am facing with my parents.’

From this point on, the attention of this man was divided between fumbling with the phone, watching a football match and attempting to listen to the girlfriend. Unless you are Clark Kent, this is not possible. The girlfriend continued to talk, but she kept being interrupted either by what this guy saw on social media which got his attention, a phone call, or what he saw on the television.

She lost her excitement, and just stopped talking. To say that the lady was now disappointed is an understatement. She felt that she was not important enough to be given attention. Am I important to this person? Do I matter? Did he even miss me as he said?

The thought crossed her mind to leave earlier because there was now no point to spend 7 hours through this torture. This was not what she envisioned a weekend with bae would be like but here they were. I would rather spend the remainder of my weekend with people who give me undivided attention.

This scenario that I have painted above is not new. This is an experience that both men and women are having with the people they love. People who are in marriages and relationships continue to encounter this challenge. Where a spouse decides to make the hours between 6-8 p.m. to be divided between fumbling with the phone and making or receiving phone calls. Something in my opinion which can be done during the hours that one is at work or place of business.

Underlying this practice is the mindset of urgency vs importance.

People who have the belief that everything is urgent and therefore they must respond to urgently. In this case the phone call. It is the urgency mindset that drives one to believe that every time the phone rings it must be answered. Every time the phone buzzes, we need to pay attention to the phone. Every message or email that comes must be answered immediately. And everything else that you are doing can wait. People who have an urgency mindset barely have successful relationships. Why, because of relationship work under a different system altogether.

The importance mindset drives one to put first things first. Instead of asking yourself the question, what is urgent, you ask yourself what is important at this moment? And based on inner consciousness you can decide. For example, in the case presented above, between fumbling with the phone, and giving more attention to the girlfriend which one is more important?

As you are making plans for valentine’s day this coming weekend, I hope that you spend both quantity and quality time with each other.

Some will argue that there I keep myself busy during this because there is nothing my husbands and I talk about around this time. This is interesting because if you spend more than 8 hours away from home, I am sure you should have some stories to share after you are back. If you don’t have any stories, then, what is going on in your life?