I often feel envy and regret when I think about the long list of things I’ve wanted to accomplish in life that other people have already accomplished; and I know that I’m certainly not alone in feeling that way. I wish I had more consistent access to a gym and had spent more time lifting weights. I wish I had more firearms training, more opportunities to practice martial arts, made more money, and had time to read all the books I once thought I’d get around to reading.

But then I look at the majority of men who have accomplished much more than I have in the various fields and hobbies that interest me, and I notice that many of them are still without a wife and children. A minority may have a wife or children, but it seems much rarer for them to have both. They’re rarely married fathers raising children within a nuclear family. If I’m going to be brutally honest, it often seems like most highly skilled and accomplished men that happen to have children rarely raise their own children—they aren’t fathers to their children; the only exception is men that become fathers much later in life, when they are mostly done acquiring skills and accomplishments.

I’m not pointing this out to disparage men who have accomplished more than I have. I’m pointing it out because life is ultimately about choices and tradeoffs. You can’t have everything. And even if you manage to have most of the things you want, something still has to give. There are only so many hours in a day and so many years in a life, and becoming exceptionally accomplished at anything usually requires sacrificing enormous amounts of time that could have been spent somewhere else.