Kids See Through To What Matters

The Daily Dad

Daily Dad

Relationships, Education, Ryan Holiday, Society & Culture, Wisdom, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Parenting, Fatherhood, Dads

4.6 • 630 Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2019

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

You can sit your kids down to watch what you think is the greatest movie of all time, and they’ll get bored and fall asleep. You can get floor seats to an NBA game and they’ll roll their eyes. You can introduce them to your fanciest, most important friends and they’ll want to go back to whatever they were doing before you called them over.

It’s almost a rule that kids don’t care about what you really, really want them to care about. And yet, there is something about kids that also seems to resemble that hilarious line from Homer Simpson. “I’m not easily impressed,” he tells Mr. Burns as they’re driving. Then he looks out the window and shouts, “Whoa! A blue car!”

Your kids might not understand how expensive those floor seats were, but they love that there is free popcorn. They might not appreciate that classic movie, but they can also play in the dirt with rapt presence for three hours. They don’t care about your billionaire boss, but they think Grandma and Grandpa are the two coolest people in the entire world. Whether they admit it or not, they think you are cool. That’s why they copy you, that’s why they want to put on your shoes, that’s why the t-shirt you gave them from when you were young is the one they love to sleep in every night.

Kids aren’t easily impressed, and yet somehow they are. It’s really that they see through most of the constructs us adults have taken for granted. They can naturally do what Marcus Aurelius practices in Meditations, the art of stripping things of the “legend that encrusts them.” Meanwhile, they also see simple, ordinary things for all the wonder and beauty that the rest of us miss. They see how little most things matter, and see how much other things do.

And in this we can learn a great deal from them.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	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.
0:14.7	I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from
0:23.4	parents just like you all over the world. Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.
0:34.6	Kids see through to what matters. You can sit your kids down to watch what you think is the
0:41.8	greatest movie of all time, and they'll get bored and fall asleep. You can get floor seats to an
0:46.8	NBA game and they'll roll their eyes. You can introduce them to your fanciest, most important
0:52.1	friends, and they'll want to go back to whatever they
0:54.4	were doing before you called them over. It's almost a rule that kids don't care about what you
0:59.9	really, really want them to care about. And yet, there is something about kids that also seems to
1:05.4	resemble that hilarious line from Homer Simpson. I'm not easily impressed, he tells Mr. Burns as they're driving.
1:12.3	Then he looks out the window and shouts, whoa, a blue car.
1:16.2	Your kids might not understand how expensive those floor seats were, but they love that there
1:21.7	is free popcorn.
1:23.2	They might not appreciate that classic movie, but they can also play in the dirt with wrapped
1:28.3	presents for hours.
1:32.7	I know the world is crazy and businesses are going through all different kinds of cycles, but
1:38.0	one thing that's always consistent is that you need the best possible people in your company.
1:44.3	And LinkedIn Jobs is here to make it easier to find the people you want to talk to faster and for free.
1:50.3	You can create a job post in minutes on LinkedIn jobs to reach your network and beyond
1:54.5	to the world's largest professional network of over 800 million people.
1:59.3	You add your job in the purple hiring frame to your LinkedIn
2:01.9	profile and it spreads the word that you're hiring so your network can help you find the right
	...

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