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.

The present is pleasurable enough.

After a long and arduous hunt, Theodore Roosevelt finally got the caribou he had been tracking.

It was one of those moments he later wrote that repay the hunter for days of toil and hardship.

That is, if he needs repayment, and does not find life in the wilderness, pleasure enough in itself.

As you watch your kid walk across the stage at their graduation, as you watch them walk for the first time, as you see them by their first house, as you watch them start for the high school football team, there is a sense of pride that you feel. You did it. It was worth it. All your time and effort succeeded. It's a wonderful feeling and by all means enjoy it. But it's important to remember that

that's never what this was about. As Roosevelt was trying to say, a hunter who only enjoys

bagging their quarry is likely to be a disappointed hunter nine times out of ten. More importantly,

they are a blind and deaf hunter who needlessly misses out on the majesty of life outdoors.

The parent who thinks this is an

occupation you win, who believes it's about those special big moments is missing a lot of majestic

life as well. It's not about the future about getting through the terrible twos or the terrible

teens on to some idyllic end result. The next milestone is not there to assure us that the days of toil and hardship were worth it.

We can't forget to notice and appreciate the little pleasures of the experience,

the right here and now.

Find pleasure in what's present today.

Don't get distracted by the future you crave or fear.

Don't demand repayment for the struggle,

because the struggle is where the true rewards live. So cherish those things while you can. And look, this is the idea of my book Still and this is the key, which debuted at number one on the best cell list. If you haven't read it yet, I do recommend it. I'd love if you read it. How can we be still? How can we be present? How can we enjoy this now? To me,

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