I have never once regretted missing a business opportunity so that I could be with my children and grandchildren.
Interpretation
Prioritizing family over business is a choice worth making.
This quote emphasizes the importance of family relationships over professional aspirations. Mitt Romney expresses that he values time spent with his children and grandchildren more than any business opportunity, highlighting the belief that family connections are more fulfilling and important than financial success.
In practice
During a family gathering, I shared this quote to express how my priorities align with spending time with loved ones.
My dad was phenomenal. Born in Mexico, lived poor, didn't graduate from college, and becomes head of a car company and then governor of a state. I can't imagine I would have ever thought about running for office had I not seen my dad do it.
My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all - the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would be, and much less about what we would do.
I have seen American determination in people like Debbi Sommers. She runs a furniture rental business for conventions in Las Vegas. When 9/11 hit, and again, when the recession tanked the conventions business, she didn't give up, close down, or lay off her people. She taught them not just to rent furniture, but also to manufacture it.
Mr. President, youβre entitled as a president to your own airplane, and to your own house, but not to your own facts.
And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, 'It could be worse.' It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse? Of course not. What defines us as Americans is our unwavering conviction that we know it must be better.
Trickle-down racism, trickle-down bigotry, trickle-down misogyny, all these things are extraordinarily dangerous to the heart and character of America.
Every time I was playing basketball, I felt sick to my stomach. I didn't realize that feeling was having to leave my family - having to leave my sister, who can't even communicate with me when I'm gone.
In Morocco, there is an insistence on authority. Children are not encouraged to speak up in front of their parents. My parents were not like this. I was the kind of girl who could tell her father, 'No, what you are saying is totally untrue, and I don't agree with you.'
A mother's body remembers her babies-the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has it's own entreaties to body and soul.
Only later did I come to understand that to be a mother is to be an illusion. No matter how vigilant, in the end a mother can't protect her child - not from pain, or horror, or the nightmare of violence, from sealed trains moving rapidly in the wrong direction, the depravity of strangers, trapdoors, abysses, fires, cars in the rain, from chance.
I think you basically have to abandon the dreams of having any other adult activities in your life. You have to go to sleep whenever your child goes to sleep.
Fortunately for me, my grandfather gave us a life I could never dream of. He was my high school football coach, my best friend, my school teacher - really my dad.
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