Life represented by the pictures and drawings hanging on your refrigerator door is much more important than what is hanging on your office wall. People, men especially, seem to get this confused. If you are ever in doubt, which is more important to you. Just look at what is hanging with magnets on your refrigerator door, and it will remind you what is most important in your life.

Several years ago, I had a good friend pass away. He was the best hotel broker that every laced up a pair of wingtips. In his office he had many (maybe a hundred or more) granite and marble monuments for every big hotel deal he sold. I went by his office a couple weeks after his funeral to visit with his partner and walked by the guy’s office that had passed. There was a trash container in the middle of the office where all the monuments were being thrown away. It was a humbling sight to see.

At the office you can have all sorts of awards, commendations, trophies, accolades and when you die all those things will be meaningless and thrown in the trash. The items hanging on your refrigerator door are what will mean the most to you when you get to the one-yard line of life and begin to look back over your years.

The other day I was alone thinking about this very thing. I got up and walked over to our refrigerator door and began to look at our lives displayed with little magnets. I realized that right before me on the refrigerator door was the essence of my life and what I held most dear in life and what I cherish the most. I realized that at my funeral, none of the items at the office will be displayed for the people to see. The items on the refrigerator door are the ones that will be seen as meaning the most to me.

Sometimes in life when the world is closing in and the lines between work and home begin to merge and get confusing, step back and look at your refrigerator door. It will remind you of what is important and who is important and where you need to be focused during your living years. We all have to go to work if we want to eat and raise a family, but work doesn’t have to be what identifies who you are, and your self-esteem does not have to be determined by your work. In fact, your greatest work is with the people pictured on your refrigerator door. KT