Do the People You Love Get Your Leftovers?
Every night, Quinn at bedtime gets two books. That’s the deal.
After that, we usually do a quick high-and-low from the day, or we pull a card from the Little Talk Deck because, honestly, the card sometimes gets a better answer than I do.
The other night, after our two books, I asked Quinn what her high today was.
She looked at me with this small glint in her eye and said, “My high today is us reading three books”. It was smart. Slightly manipulative... but completely effective.
She got the third book.
Kids are very direct about wanting more of you. Adults usually aren’t.
I'm not a quantity parent. By that, I mean I'm not home with her all day, and I don't romanticize that.
From drop-off to pickup, I'm usually in full work mode. Head down. Moving fast. Trying to get a lot done before family mode starts. And honestly, I think being a stay-at-home parent is one of the hardest jobs there is if you're doing it well.
So this season of life has me thinking less about quantity and more about presence. Because the goal isn't to be everywhere. It's to actually be where you are.
That bedtime moment reminded me how easy it is to confuse proximity with presence. To assume that because we're around someone, we're giving them what they need. We do this with grown-ups too. Especially the people we love most.
The Pattern
I used to do this when I’d go home to Ireland. Because I only get home once or twice a year, the visits would fill up fast. Coffee with one person. Dinner with another. “Let’s catch up while you’re in town” from every direction.
And because I was staying with my mum, I treated time with her like the guaranteed part.
I’ll see her anytime, I thought.
But “anytime” has a sneaky way of turning into whatever scraps are left after everyone else. A tired conversation at the end of the day. Half-attention between plans. Leftover time.
Nir Eyal has a phrase in Indistractable that stuck with me: the residual benefactor.
In business, a residual beneficiary is the chump who gets whatever is left over when a company is liquidated, typically not much.
The scraps. The remainder. The part that wasn’t protected first.
In life, it’s often the people we love most.
They get the version of us that’s still standing after work, obligations, logistics, notifications, and everybody else’s needs took the first cut. The leftovers.
The people who matter most should not have to live on your leftovers.
Then there’s The Tail End by Tim Urban, which is one of those pieces you read once and never really forget. It’s about how, once you move away from home, the number of times you’ll actually see your parents again is probably much smaller than you think. Not in a dramatic way. Just in a math way. And somehow that makes it hit harder.
I'm turning 40 this year, and one of the things I did was book a trip to Japan with my mum because she's always wanted to go. Partly because I want a big trip for this birthday. But mostly because I don't want to keep acting like there will always be another season to be intentional later.
My mom is one of six sisters, and one of them passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. She was going to be turning 70. That kind of loss has a way of making later feel a lot less real.
We always think there will be more time. There might not be.
Take the trip. Make the call. Do the thing.
Later is where a lot of good intentions go to die. Relationships don't usually break all at once. They thin out. By accident. By distraction. By leaving the most important things to fend for themselves.
Pick one person who has been getting your leftovers. Put 30 minutes on the calendar for them this week.
- Make it real, not aspirational.
- Protect it like you would any meeting that matters.
- If you're a parent, maybe it's 10 extra minutes at bedtime with no phone in sight.
- If it's your mom, maybe it's booking the call before Mother's Day instead of thinking, I should really do that.
- If it's yourself, maybe it's taking a walk before you open your laptop instead of after you've burned through the best of you.
Who in your life is currently getting your leftover time instead of your deliberate time?
📚 The Tail End by Tim Urban — a blog post from 2015 and one of my favorites ever.
📚 Indistractable by Nir Eyal — great book about living intentionally and aligns with much of what we believe here at BestSelf. Especially the idea that what isn’t scheduled tends to become the residual beneficiary of your life.
