Ben Greenfield, speaking in a YouTube video titled "Prepared" (May 11, 2023), advises traveling parents to prioritize how they spend time at home—focusing on preparing, protecting, and providing for family—so that when they travel they avoid feelings of angst or guilt. He contrasts common personal interests (gym, books, friends) with the need to invest in family presence and foundation.
If you're a traveling parent and you leave and there's angst, it's a pretty good sign that you're not spending the time that you do have at home with the proper priorities. See, because for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. So what do you treasure? The gym and your books and magazines and your learning and your special interests and getting out and about with your friends, which nothing's wrong with all that stuff. But if you get sad when you leave your house, you. Yeah, part of that is just loving and missing your family. But if it happens and it feels like it's this angst, like this struggle, a lot of times that means you're not spending the time that you are home in the right way. It's all about preparing your family, protecting and providing. So when you leave, you don't have that conscience that you should be home. You can have both. You just have to do the right thing when you are home so that when you travel, you have that peace of mind that they're prepared, that you've set the foundation.
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