"And it struck me, rather more uncomfortably, that the reason I’d been seeking all this advice in the first place was because this was my stance on life, too: **that for as long as I could remember, my days had been spent striving for future outcomes—exam results, jobs, better exercise habits: the list went on and on—in the service of some notional time when life would run smoothly at last**. "Now that my daily duties involved a baby, I’d simply expanded my instrumental approach to accommodate the new reality: **I wanted to know that I was doing whatever was required to obtain optimal future results in the domain of child-rearing as well**." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[control]], [[acceptance]], [[parenting]], [[amor-fati]], [[character]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]