> It's not novel; it's just blatantly false for large swaths of men, young and old alike.
Having kids absolutely gave me purpose in life which I did not have before. It gave me something worth living and dying for, beyond my own pointless momentary whims.
And I now know that happiness is a choice: I can choose to find happiness in the midst of life's challenges, or I can choose to be unhappy instead.
If you'd asked me 20 years ago, I doubt I would have agreed with any of that. But I chose to take a leap into the unknown, before knowing where I would land, and I would never wish to have not taken that leap. Sometimes I wish I'd made better choices in the aftermath, or that fate had dealt us better cards – but the leap itself I could never regret
