Absentee Landlord

Salem, MA

Are you an absentee landlord?  You may be thinking that you aren’t a landlord.  You don’t own property.  You don’t rent it out.  You have no property to maintain on the behalf of others.

According to Wikipedia: “A landlord is the male owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant.”  And, yes, I take issue with the fact that it says “male owner” but I’m just telling you what Wikipedia said.

And, also according to Wikipedia, here is the definition of an absentee landlord:  “When used in a local context, the term refers to a landlord of a house or other real estate, who leases the property to tenants, but fails to ensure that proper maintenance is done on it. This in turn leads to what may appear to be abandoned buildings, causing significantly-lowered property values and urban blight.”

Given those definitions, why am I asking if you are an absentee landlord?  Well, who owns your life?  You do.  But who is running it and maintaining it?  Are you?  Or are you absent from your own life?

What does it mean to be a good landlord of your life?  What does it mean to you to maintain your life?  Does it include setting and reaching goals?  Does it include maintaining the “property” (ie – your body)?  Does it include taking care of the tenant (i.e. your spirit)?

How are you a good landlord?  How are you an absentee landlord?  Be present!  Make decisions.  Actively take care of your life, spirit, body.  Don’t be an absentee landlord any more!  It’s not easy.  Trust me.  I’d much rather sit on the couch and watch life sometimes.  With exhaustion and achiness eating away at my body and gnawing at my soul, it can sometimes be difficult to maintain my property and tend to the tenant.  But, if I don’t, I’ll start to look like an abandoned property.  Who wants that?