Look, you knew there was a cost to it. You knew your daughter would be sad that you were out of town and couldn’t come to her play. You knew your son would be disappointed that you had yet another long day and couldn’t help him with his homework. You knew that work was taking a toll on your marriage.

But you felt it had to be done…and you didn’t think far enough ahead.

“One does not deceive oneself about the consequences of one’s acts,” John Williams has Augustus say in his beautiful and haunting novel (which has some amazing parenting lessons), “one deceives oneself about the ease with which one can live with those consequences.”

We just assume that our family will be endlessly patient. We just assume they will understand. We just assume that we’ll be able to figure it out. We assume we’ll be able to live with whatever happens.

But that’s not how this works—not as parents, anyway. Because we can lose the family we take for granted. Because the debits you make in a relationship can only outpace the deposits for so long. Augustus might have been the most powerful man in the world, but in Williams’ novel (and in real life) he ends up estranged from his beloved daughter. His marriage is a nightmare. For all the wealth and fame, he is miserable—a tragic, cautionary figure.

We fool ourselves that none of these individual decisions matter. We fool ourselves that the consequences are manageable…which they are until suddenly, they are not.

Think about what effect your actions will have in the long run. Think more about your family, your long-term happiness, their long-term happiness, and act accordingly.

P.S. I put John Williams’ Augustus on my list of the very best books I read in 2025 (if you’re not yet on my reading list email and would like to be, you can sign up here). I thought it was beautiful and illuminating, especially on the themes of power and ambition and happiness. It’s a novel about the rise and reign of Rome’s first emperor, with a surprise appearance of Seneca at the end, but I won’t spoil it. Just grab your copy here!