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.

You can't stop, no matter what.

Nothing about Marcus Aurelius' reign was fair.

Fate tested him with one catastrophe after another.

The Parthenians invaded and triggered a war that would last five years.

Then the river Tiber flooded, destroying homes and livestock, causing a famine in Rome.

Then after victory against the Parthenians, Romans brought back a deadly

contagion, which became known as the Antonine plague, then crippled by famine and plague, hostile tribes

to the north seized the opportunity to band together and attacked the Romans, a war that would last

the rest of his days. And while all this was going on,

he lost eight children, some in infancy, some to the plague. And then just as it looked like his

fortunes might be turning, Marcus himself came down with the disease. His doctor's diagnosis

gave him only a few days to live. And the ancient Roman historian Cassius Dio tells us that he

immediately summoned the best men of the Senate to make his final command that they counsel and guide his

son, Comedus. It doesn't matter if fate deals us an unfair hand. It doesn't matter if a pandemic

upends life as we know it. It doesn't matter if we're

told we only have a few days left. We still have a job, our most important job to do.

The sports journalist and mother of two Kelsey Snow has been writing beautifully about this on

her blog. Two years ago, 18 months after having a stroke, Snow's husband was diagnosed with ALS at the age of 37.

During our darkest days last June, she wrote, our son had baseball practice, because even if your

...