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.

There have been incalculable losses over the last year.

The death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic is staggering. The economic

devastation is generational. And that is to say nothing of the misgraduations, the lost seasons of

youth sports, time away from the classroom. These losses are real. But we must not, as parents,

be too quick to let those losses dominate our view of what

has transpired. We should not give in to this narrative that our kids, our families, our lives

have been irreparably harmed because inside all of this loss has also been a gift. Never before and

never again will we likely get to spend this much time together day in and day out

eventually more and more work will transition back to the office travel will become commonplace

will be so busy that even the time we've spent face-timing and skyping with relatives we were

separated from will seem like a distant luxury this This year we've gotten to spend time together

was a gift. It was months and months of garbage time, garbage time on the couch in the yard,

putting them down to bed, taking them for long drives just to break up the boredom.

Even the cabin fever we occasionally felt, one day we'll miss that. We'll look back at this unique

period and think, remember when I didn't miss bath time for a year? Remember when I watched them

grow two inches in front of me? Remember when my teenage daughter actually talked to me? Because

she didn't have anyone else to talk to? Yes, this pandemic has been tragic. But even in tragedy, there was beauty

because there was family. There was the present moment. You got to enjoy that. You got to breathe

...