In the classic tale “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge was rich because he was extremely frugal (miserly really).  So frugal that he never gave to charity, and was always out to save a buck.  I know that this is just a story, but truth be told, most rich folk aren’t like this, the statistics back me up on this.  But I’m not going to talk about the frugality and amount of charity that the rich dole out (as interesting as that is).

I want to bring to highlight another aspect of the character Ebenezer Scrooge.  That characteristic is his loneliness and lack of real friends.  In the story, his newphew would stop by at his uncle’s place and invite him to a Christmas party every year.  But Scrooge would bah humbug it off and not go.  I started wondering, what is the cost of missing an annual parties like that?  Very high and here’s why:

• The friends (you included) at the Christmas (or any) party will only be that way once at that time.  It’s not replicatable.  So if you have kids, they will only look, think and be (unique) that way at one time in life.  You can never get that event back.  If you were there at the party, you could be videotaping it for memories in later years.  I wonder what the cost of such memories would be?  The only way to really know is to ask someone older that missed them.
• When you miss social events, you miss the opportunity to network.  But really, that should only be 10% of the reason you would go to such an event.  Go because your like people!  Go because life is more than the perceived piece of paper in your wallet/purse.
• Believe it or not (depending on the party composition), most likely you will learn something new at the party.  Where I live, we have neighborhood parties, and at the minimum I learn at least 1 new thing at each and every party.

Why I’m writing this is because I missed a 2000 New Year’s Eve party because I had to be on-site at my company (I’m a techie).  The funny thing is if you aren’t there, you really don’t know what you missed (but you did!).

So what I’m saying is “Don’t miss out on life”, there are more important things that just work and money.  Do the Carpe Diem thing and “grab life by the horns” when you have the opportunity.