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.

Now is the time to use it. Parenting has always been difficult, and it was made more difficult by the

pandemic and school lockdowns and all of that. But two years in, so many of us are at the end of our ropes,

parents especially. How can you tell? A group of parents in Massachusetts have been organizing

small outdoor get-togethers just to scream,

to shout out all their frustrations into the void.

Nothing more.

And who can blame them?

Which is why it's such a perfect time to remember a piece of advice that the writer and parent,

Julia Baird, offers in her beautiful book, Phosphorescence.

At Rock Bottom, her therapist passed along something he had been told himself at his lowest point.

It is now that everything you have been given in your life matters, he explained.

This is what you draw on, your parents, your friends, your work, your books, everything you have

ever been told, everything you have ever been told,

everything you have ever learned. This is when you use that. It sounds grandiose and complicated,

like a self-help theory of everything, but really it's excruciatingly simple because all the

hard work has already been done. You've lived the lessons, read the books,

done the jobs, heeded the advice, both wanted and unwanted. Now you just have to listen to it and apply it.

Who knows how much longer this insanity will go on? Who knows what the future holds? All we know is

that everything we've ever experienced in our life has led up to right now.

...