joy · you delight in having gained a thing · relationships · children
what you just named
You came in joy, not pain: that you delight in having gained a thing, in your relationships — specifically with children — and you reached for the Stoic voice first. That's what you've named. Listen now to what it answers.
- Stoic
Spirit
mind
The look was the look on a particular Saturday. Seneca writes about pain: pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it. The mirror holds. Joy is whole if opinion has added nothing to it. The opinion ready to add itself is the one that says you must keep that look, that future Saturdays should also produce it, that you have arrived at a new standard of how your child sees you. That opinion is what will start watching for the look and will not see it when it next happens because watching for it pre-fills the eyes. Let the look have been the look. The next Saturday will be its own.
heart
Let the look have been the look. Don't watch for the next one. The next Saturday is its own.
connection
You stand in the line of every father who received a moment of being seen by his child and did not turn it into a benchmark — every man who let Saturdays be themselves and was seen, sometimes, in some of them.
Action
Today, give thanks for the look. Once. Briefly. Then go about the day without watching for the next one.
Reference
Pain is slight if opinion has added nothing to it
Seneca, Letters from a Stoic Ep. 78
practice
Receiving the look and not adding the opinion that next Saturday must produce it again
principle
Joy is whole when opinion adds nothing; watching for the look is what prevents the next one from being seen
value
Saturdays as themselves, one at a time