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.

It's the hardest thing.

Chesty Puller saw some stuff. He fought in the banana wars. He fought in

guerrilla wars. He took islands in the Pacific during World War II. He fought in Korea. So you might

think that he'd be able to handle just about anything that life threw at him. But like you,

he was a father, and he found that it was just about the hardest

thing a person can ever do. Just home from Korea having landed at Incheon and fought in the

brutal cold at close quarters, Chesty and his wife had to take their daughter to get her tonsils out.

Chesty, who had always been a sweetheart underneath, carried the girl to the operating room.

Talking to her softly, he tried to lay her down on the bed and let the nurse prepare her for surgery.

But his daughter scared and overwhelmed, refused to let go. She cried and screamed and clung to him

until eventually they had to separate and sedate her. She will never forgive me, Virginia, he said to his wife when he returned to the waiting room.

This is worse than Pellaloo.

He was only half exaggerating.

This thing demands more of us than just about anything else in life.

It challenges us emotionally, physically, mentally.

It tugs on every one of our heartstrings.

You can toughen yourself up for war.

You can coolly bet millions of dollars at work, but there's nothing you can do about the

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