When I saw the title "I’m taking a break from my wife and kids" and actually started reading it, I was expecting a story about enthusiastic entrepreneur willing to sacrifice his family for his startup. On the contrary, it's a reminder what is really important, and that you can't fully understand it unless you have it, and then you lose it. We just take too much for granted.
I have this saying that I've been telling my 19 year old son since he could talk: "Too much of anything, except love, is a bad thing." I now tell that to my daughter who is 11. I don't know it's so much taking things for granted, more than being able to quickly identify which things in life give you the greatest return on joy and focusing on those. Chances are I couldn't handle talking to her all day and all night for a solid week, but I definitely know I start missing the little PITA when she is gone for more than a few days. I miss her because I love her and she brings me joy, but that doesn't mean she doesn't drive me, my wife and my son nuts when we are around her all the time. Ying and yang, baby.
Completely agree. It's hard to explain to some twenty something what having kids really means. Heck, I complain that they wake mu up every day at 6am by just jumping on me in my bed while I sleep, but then again, when they are not there for a few days I miss these annoyances so bad that I can't fall asleep without few beers. But I wasn't able to really realize what they mean to me before I moved to another country for three months.
