“No one gives a sh*t whether this works out for you except you.”

I’ve posted before about the importance of teaching your children to shepherd their interests effectively.

There are plenty of situations in life in which no one’s out to get you, but no one’s looking out for you either. Bureaucracies are devoid of empathy. Individual players get tunnel vision. If you need something from the machine, you have to be polite and persistent. You must record everything. You must assume nothing.

I’m not going to tell my son’s business, but he has something in this vein to navigate. When I talked to him about it just now, I said “don’t think you know what I’m going to say next and try to hurry me along. You sit and listen carefully.”

I explained everything that needs to happen. He acknowledged.

At the end of the conversation, I patted him on the chest and said “no one gives a shit whether this works out for you except you. A lot of life is like that. Never forget it.”

When we talk about our kids making their own mistakes and learning from them, this is a prime arena in which to do so, and I know he’ll drop a ball in it eventually. So will my other son. I know they will, because I did. It doesn’t make it any more pleasant to be the dad right now. You just hope it’s manageable when it happens.

“Don’t play in traffic” is so much easier.

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