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 I hope this helps.

It's all bubbles. It was a timeless scene, one that might have happened in your house just this past afternoon.

The kids are playing with bubbles. They're laughing and yelling, blowing and darting around,

trying to pop them, finding the most wonderful joy in the simple magic of soap and air.

But this wasn't in 2023. It was sometime in the late 18th century. They fill the air of the room

with their bubbles, their air bubbles which roll

and shine reflecting the light of the fire and the candles and are very beautiful, John Adams said

of his granddaughters, Susanna and Abigail. As he watched them play with one of his old pipes,

he struck a philosophical note. There can be no more perfect emblem of the physical and political and theological scenes of life, he said.

Mortality only is eternal. All the rest is balloon and bubble from the cradle to the grave.

We are here for such a short time. The things we get worked up about seem so important. But are they?

The promotion moving to a bigger

house, the latest news from the neighborhood, the offensive exchange that is stuck in your mind,

these are all bubbles. Even the trouble your kids get into at school, the phase of sleepless nights

traveling for competitive baseball, all of these things are little bubbles of air and they won't

last long.

Enjoy them, appreciate them, laugh and giggle at them.

In other words, understand how ephemeral and meaningless they are.

In all cases, actually understand how fleeting and fragile everything is.

It's all bubbles, life. None of it lasts.

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