Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you

with your most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy,

by practical wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Don't miss the reminders.

Every time you pick them up to trim their nails, every time you take them to get a haircut,

every time you have to take a load of clothes to Goodwill or to a friend's house, every time you have

to buy them a new pair of socks or shoes, be sure to take a moment to notice. Notice what has led

up to this, whether it's a few weeks between nail trimmings or six

months for a pair of new bigger shoes. What has happened is a piece of their childhood has elapsed.

That time has passed time and it is gone forever. Now ask yourself, did you spend it well? Did you live it? Were you who and what

they needed to be? Seneca wrote that death isn't just some inevitable event in the future.

Death is happening right now, he says. The time that passes belongs to death, he reminds us. We can't take it for granted.

We have only so many summers at home together with our kids, as we've said before. Only so

many drives to school, only so many graduation ceremonies. Every time they wear out a coat,

every time they outgrow a pair of shoes or a pair of pants,

those moments mark movement. They are the hash marks of the homemade growth chart on the kitchen

doorframe. They tick off opportunities for time together that will never come back. So don't waste

them. And remember, we don't all have equal amounts of time. They have more

haircuts in their future than we do. They have more pairs of shoes to walk through still.

You don't. You are getting old, which means you have even less of an excuse to waste time,

to waste energy on the wrong things, to chase the wrong

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