The other day, my daughter asked me to sit on the floor and play.

I almost said no.

Not because I didn't want to.

Because I was in the middle of something that felt important.

An email.

A project.

One more thing to finish before I could give her my full attention.

I even started to say, "Just a minute."

Then I caught myself.

One day, she won't ask anymore.

There will be a last time she reaches for my hand.

A last time she wants me to read the same book again.

A last time she wants me to build towers that she can knock down.

A last time she wants me to carry her to bed.

The difficult part is that we almost never recognize those moments while we're living them.

Life doesn't announce, "This is the last time."

It simply moves forward.

I've spent much of my adult life thinking about compounding.

Money compounds.

Knowledge compounds.

Relationships compound.

But so do missed opportunities.

Every "later" has a cost.

Sometimes the cost is invisible until years have passed.

That doesn't mean work isn't important.

It is.

Providing for a family is one of the greatest responsibilities a parent has.

But I don't want to confuse urgency with importance.

Most emails can wait.

Most projects can wait.

Childhood cannot.

My hope isn't to perfectly balance work and family.

I don't think balance really exists.

Instead, I want to become better at recognizing the moments that deserve an immediate "yes."

The laptop will always be there.

The unread messages will still be waiting.

The little voice asking me to sit on the floor won't.

If there's one lesson I hope my future self remembers, it's this:

When the people you love ask for your time, don't assume they'll ask forever.

One day they'll stop asking.

When they do, I hope I can say I answered "yes" more often than "later."