I love my work and I will always love working. But in the past year, I fell into the trap of trying to outsource too much of my parenting responsibilities to external childcare. My excuse was that night time and weekend babysitters would free up time for me to work more and provide a better life for my family. But now I’m realizing how important it is to just sit in the process of the mundane, even if it feels unproductive. To ask my 2.5 year old son to help me put away the dishes even when he drops half of them and it takes 3x as long. To sit for 2 hours on a Sunday watching my infant try to eat the pages of his board book. If you have young children at home, just remember this: all they care about is spending time with you. It doesn’t matter if they can build a Magna tile block tower themselves. Having you sit there and watch them, even if you’re not physically contributing, makes them feel loved and comforted. Anything else you tell yourself is just an excuse. And that’s okay. We’re all human beings who have our own needs. But don’t fall into the same trap I did. Delayed gratification was a mindset that got me to where I am. But now it’s something I have to unlearn to soak in the present while my kids are still young and want to spend time with me.

Letting go isn’t surrender. It’s maturity.
 It’s knowing when to stop over-controlling outcomes you never had control over. 
The pros let go. 
The amateurs white-knuckle everything and call it “tenacity.”

There’s no such thing as “real estate”. There are only millions of individual homes, in different neighborhoods, bought at different times, financed different ways. It’s all anecdotes, and the only one that matters is the one you buy. But that doesn’t get any clicks.