The kid doesn’t want your money. It wants your time.
Jimmy Carr told the story that makes the line land. Warren Farrell, the psychologist, had a client who was rich, successful, and quietly broken over the relationship he never built with his first child. His wife was pregnant again.
Farrell asked what he actually wanted. The man said he would shut the business down for five years and just be home. He did it. Only later did Farrell realize the client was John Lennon. Those five years with Sean became the most important of his life. Lennon had no idea how little time he had left.
Mark Twain saw the same truth long before: “We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.”
Sometimes the best decision is the one that looks irrational on paper.
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