We hear this all the time, right? Sometimes, it’s coming from your own mouth.

But life is lived in only one direction — forward — and lessons are learned only in reverse, in retrospect. As Benjamin Franklin stated perfectly, “The great tragedy of life is that we get old too soon, and wise too late.”

Happily though, I realized that maybe this is what my kids are for: to teach them all the things that I know now, but wish I knew then? Maybe if I do a good job at this — and if my kids actually listen and take heed, a big ‘if’ — my kids will be better, smarter, and happier than me. In the end, that’s all I wish for them.