It’s early. So early. And they’re up….already. With a nightmare. Or they’re jumping into your bed. Or they’re getting into mischief. Or it’s early and you’re the one up turning on the lights, going into their room, getting them ready for a long drive to school across time.

You’d love to be asleep. You’d love to stay under the blankets and keep warm, as Marcus Aurelius writes in that famous passage of Meditations (our favorite edition here). It’s understandable, you’re exhausted.

But still, you can say to yourself, as Marcus (father of 13) tried to say to himself: “I have to go to work—as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for—the things I was brought into the world to do?”

We were made for this. This is our most important job. Being with them. Helping them. Taking care of them. It’s tough, sure, but it’s also a deeply purposeful thing. It’s a thing that, as we’ve said many times here before, we will not get to do forever. It’s a thing that soon enough we will miss.

So while we have the chance, let’s embrace this job that we get to do. Let’s love that we get to do it. Rise up, rise happy, get after it. Do what the job demands. Do what needs to be done. Fulfill your purpose.