This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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

with your most important job, being a parent. I'm Ryan Holiday and I draw these lessons from

ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom,

and insights from parents just like you all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Every step comes with this.

There was that moment before they were born that you found yourself looking forward to when they could crawl.

It would be so fun, you thought, right up until they started crawling away and giving themselves into dangerous situation.

In a sense, this is a metaphor for parenting itself, because every step they take is like this.

Literally, you look forward to them walking and you've been chasing them ever since, worried

ever since. You think it'll be great when they're old enough to start walking themselves to

school and it is, but it also means they'll start asking you to walk all sorts of places unsupervised.

It'll be great when you don't have to drive them anymore,

but then you'll have to trust them behind the wheel, a truly terrifying thought. We talked a while

back about that Morgan Wade lyric that every dream is a parent's fear. That's what every step of

progress and independence is for our kids. It's wonderful and exciting and we're so proud of what it means for them. But for us, well, it also means worry. It means they can get in trouble. It means we can't protect them the way we so naturally crave to, you know, keeping them close. This is something you're just going to have to accept. It's another reminder to, you know, to not try to press the fast forward button in your mind.

Enjoy the moment that you have right now.

Don't wish for another milestone.

It'll come sooner than you can bear.

I don't think there's any parents that are like, I'm killing it.

I've got it all under control. I've got no issues. We all know we have issues. We're all trying to work on being better so we can be better for our kids. I think therapy is a great way to do that. Certainly, I have taken advantage of all these tools out there over the years to be better as a person and as a parent. And I was just talking to

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