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.

On their deathbeds, fathers think about a lot of things.

They think about the world they're leaving to their sons and daughters.

They think about how they parented.

They think about the mistakes they made.

They think about what they did right.

They are warmed by the thoughts of their children.

And if they are lucky,

they find themselves surrounded by their children with their hospital bed serving as the final crowded table that we have talked about so much here. The question for you to think about

today, on a day hopefully quite far from that moment, is what decisions are you making now

and how will you think about them then?

Think about what most dads regret when they come to the end of life.

They regret not spending more time with their kids.

They regret not telling them how proud they are of them and not doing it enough.

They regret taking things too seriously.

They regret letting petty differences

or petty problems loom larger than the love they felt in their hearts. They regret not being

present, spending all that energy trying to organize perfect quality time when there was so much

ordinary, wonderful garbage time to be had. They regret not engaging with the slime because they

...