When Lee Kravitz lost his job he found himself at loose ends, unhappy with the man he'd become.
A workaholic, Kravitz was a dad who didn't go on vacation with his kids or make time for their baseball games. As a husband, he let his wife, Elizabeth, do most of the child-rearing and household chores.
In an attempt to right the wrongs he'd committed in his life, Kravitz decided to devote an entire year to reconnecting with the people who mattered to him, and taking care of long overdue debts and promises.
His book, Unfinished Business, is about the ten journeys he took to right the wrongs in his life.
In one of those journeys, the debt was literal -- he borrowed $600 from a friend when the two drove through India and Pakistan, retracing the route of Alexander the Great.
Kravitz says the loan weighed heavily on him.
"In my mind, this debt just grew and grew until it was $6 million that I owed him," he tells NPR's Neal Conan. "As a result, I didn't keep in touch with someone who had shared one of the great adventures of my life."
As Kravitz got older and his memories of the trip got hazy, he says he felt compelled to get back in touch with his old friend. "So I sent him the check for $600, and lo and behold, he didn't even remember that I had borrowed it from him."
What was wonderful, says Kravitz, is that his friend then passed the money along to his own son, who was the same age they were when they traveled through Asia. Kravitz hopes the son might be able to take a similarly great adventure.
Kravitz says he isn't sure what's next for him: "I think the important thing for me is that I spent a year resetting my priorities. That's what I had to do, and that's what I did."
He says no matter what he does going forward -- writing, or getting back into the rat race -- he believes his year-long reset will help him stay true.
Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. 9(MDM3NjYwMjA5MDE1MjA1MzQ1NDk1N2ZmZQ004))