I’m about to be a dad, and every time I ask other dads about it, a strange common denominator stands out. Most of what they say is negative. “Just wait,” they tell me. “You won’t sleep. You won’t have time. Say goodbye to this, goodbye to that.” It’s kind of annoying. I don’t think it comes from a bad place. I’m sure they love their kids.

I think their minds, left to themselves, default to the hard rather than the meaningful. And I find myself wanting to say, Just tell me something good, the positive stuff.

I’m not naive. I know it’s going to be hard. I didn’t stumble into this blindly. I’ve watched other people go through it. I understand that there will be less sleep, more responsibility, and that my time will no longer be my own in the same way. I know there will be rough moments. I accept all of that. What I don’t understand is why difficulty has to be the headline.

The Yogi teaches that the untrained mind instinctively leans toward anticipation of loss rather than expansion, rehearsing fatigue before it ever arrives. What people are often describing is not necessarily parenthood itself, it’s their relationship to effort. Difficulty, when viewed through fear, becomes complaint. When viewed through purpose, it becomes training, formation.

What comes to my mind the most is a different question entirely: Why did this soul choose us as parents?

According to the Yogi Philosophy, no soul enters life by accident. Deep relationships, especially between parent and child, arise from karmic affinity and shared growth. In other words, souls are drawn to each other because they have something to learn together, something to teach one another. The bond existed before biology made it visible.

So I don’t think of this as losing sleep. I think of it as exchanging one form of energy for another. I don’t see it as giving up time, I think of it as redirecting consciousness. From self-maintenance toward creation. My attention shapes my experience. What I dwell upon, I magnify.

I don’t need to be warned that it will be hard. I know that already. I am ready. What I’m interested in is who this experience will shape me into, and what this new life might teach me along the way.