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.

Take relief from this. There's so much to manage, so much to worry about. In a way, being a person is exhausting,

isn't it? You have potential to maximize. You have your health to take care of. There's the

concerning direction of the world, the legacy you hope to leave, the memories you feel like you

should be making, the general feeling that you should be doing more. And there is a kind of narcissism to all this, a self-obsession that

wears us down. And although parenting certainly adds a lot to our plate, it is also massively

clarifying. It cuts through all the noise, cuts down the sheer amount of time we have to obsess and compare.

It's not all about you, Ezra Klein recently said, and that, I guess, is maybe one of the really

great joys of parenting. It makes you see that it's not all about you. Parenting pulls us out of our

heads and into the present.

When a child needs you, there is no time to spiral about your own worries, no room to obsess over

status, ambition, or your latest existential crisis. You're too busy tying shoes, wiping tears,

making snacks, answering endless questions, parenting demands presence and patience.

It demands us to set aside our feelings of self-importance and instead give ourselves fully

to another. And over time, that need to prove ourselves, all those things we once agonized over,

they fade away. And what matters we realize is right there in front of us. And it

is more than enough.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Daily Dad podcast.

You can get this via email every day as well at Daily Dad.com.

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