This is Daily Dadspeak—daily reflections on becoming a dad, while still growing up myself. You can find the full mini-pod audio list here.
Every day, I wake up and walk my kids to school. I love this time. It gets me moving, and gives me a little time to connect with them before we part ways for the day.
I recently added up the time I’ve spent on these morning walks. Both in Barcelona and in our current small-town USA home, our walks are about half a mile. So that gives us 15-20 minutes a day, five days a week.
Over a 180-day school year, those 17 minutes a day turn into 50 hours of time walking with kids to school. Multiply that over the 10 years I’ve been doing this, and we’re talking about over 500 hours of time spent together on these walks. That’s a lot of time.
Now, there are a couple ways you could see this time.
You could treat it like something you do in between the things that really matter. Another example of all the running around you do for your kids. And you can spend that time feeling anxious or rushed or lost in thought.
Or you can treat this little bit of time as a small daily gift. A few minutes that you can fully dedicate to these little people you love. Time you can talk, look, play games, and imagine together.
You may not be able to walk your kids to school. You may not even have kids. But it’s a reminder that there’s a lot of time buried in transitions— that time in between the main events. Are you making the most of your transitions? Where could you find an extra 500 hours?
→ Read more about the moments gained on these walks, and why they’re so bittersweet.
Enjoy this? Get a monthly-ish roundup of reflections and quotes on life and little people straight to your inbox:
Enjoy this? Share it with someone else who will too:
