#107 Underrated cool

Hi everyone. Welcome to How to Live, a podcast that explores ways to live a good life.

I'm your host, Sharad Lal. This is episode 107.

Last month I talked about how the people closest to us sometimes don’t get the best of us. Our best version sometimes goes to associates and folks in our professional circles. The people we love the most get the leftovers.

A lot of you wrote back. And your replies made me realise there was another layer I hadn't touched.

Because even when we are there for our families - what version of us is actually showing up?

I wrote a short note about this in my newsletter. It was called "Underrated Cool." Here it is.

One of you wrote about a conversation with your teenage son. He described the "underrated cool" parents - the ones who make their kids feel good, even through the tough stuff. Not cool for what they do. Cool because of how they make their kids feel. Kids remember the feeling.

That landed on something I don't like admitting. How much of my own anxiety I quietly put on my girls. Especially when I'm fighting to be present for them. I'd give them my Saturdays and Sundays, but after a hard work week I'd find myself losing my cool over small things. Impatient. Half-there.

At one point my wife told me to go take an hour for myself. So I started slipping out to a cafe. A coffee and some writing that was just mine. And I'd come back lighter. We'd actually have fun.

Looking back, the version I was proud of - the one where I stayed out of duty but sat in the room tired, my anxiety leaking onto them as pressure that was never theirs to carry - that isn't presence. That's just proximity. I was in the room. I wasn't with them.

But lately I don't fully trust the fix. Self-care has become one of those explanations that fits over almost anything. When is taking care of ourselves what allows us to care for others? And when is it just avoidance with a better name?

That was the note. And this one hit differently.

One reader described a moment with his son which many of us might associate with.

He'd been working all day. Then he sat with his son to help him study. And he told his son that. I've been working all day and I'm still here with you. You've done nothing all day and you won't even put in an hour.

And then he caught it.

The message underneath the message. I'm sacrificing for you. Don't forget it.

He hadn't meant to say that. But that's what landed.

Doing the right thing. And the wrong thing leaking out underneath it. I think a lot of us have been that person.

Another reader said something that was also insightful.

What he really wants with his boys is lightness. Laughter. A little more play.

Instead, he often finds himself correcting. Managing. Parenting.

And he wondered whether all the activities we fill our kids' lives is actually to do with energy and presence. 

We’re tired - we dont have the energy to be present so we outsource presence to someone who has the energy for it.

Ouch.

Another reader watches her father spend an entire day with her kids.

Huge energy. Completely present.

And she wondered: why am I exhausted after two hours?

Then it hit her. He gets to leave.

Grandparents may have cracked the system. They arrive rested. Have a wonderful time. And just as things are starting to unravel - they go home.

But there's a serious point underneath it. Distance can create presence.

Someone else called it energy management rather than time management. I think that's right.

The question isn't just whether we take a break. It's whether the break actually restores us. Forty minutes scrolling on the phone can technically be "me time." I'm not sure anyone has ever emerged from it renewed.

Find what genuinely refills you. And make it repeatable.

Then one reply turned the whole thing around.

What if our children don't always need our best self?

What if they need our whole self?

I liked that.

Although, to be clear, my girls get plenty of access to my imperfect self. No shortage there.

Mine normally shows up as grumpiness. Impatience. Occasionally saying something sharper than I should.

Now - "show up as your whole self" can't become a free pass for that. It's not a cover for being short-tempered or unkind and calling it authenticity.

But maybe the answer isn't pretending that version of us doesn't exist.

It's what happens next.

Can I catch it? Can I say, "Daddy's being grumpy. This isn't about you."

And when I've gone too far - can I apologise?

Because our kids are going to see us get things wrong. Maybe that's not the failure. Maybe the failure is acting as though we didn't.

I wrote back to this reader that the apology might be half the parenting.

I still think there's something in that. Not permission to behave badly. Just permission to be human - and responsibility to repair.

So that's where I've landed. For now.

Presence isn't just being there. It's noticing what we're bringing into the room.

Sometimes that means taking the break. Sometimes it means putting the phone down. Sometimes it means catching the invoice we're quietly handing our children.

And sometimes it just means saying: I was grumpy. That wasn't fair. I'm sorry.

Still working on the underrated cool part.

I'll keep you posted.

If something in today's episode stirred something in you, I'd love to hear from you.

You can reply to any of my newsletters, or find my contact details in the show notes. I read every message.

The newsletter comes out every second Saturday. One honest thought. Nothing forced into a neat conclusion.

You can sign up at newsletter.sharadlal.net.

I'll be back next month.

Thank you for being here.