Ramana Reddy Advocate

Happy Makar sankranti ✨

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Ramana Reddy Advocate

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Ramana Reddy Advocate

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Ramana Reddy Advocate

Life is either a great adventure or nothing. - Hellen Keller

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The magic you’re looking for is in the work you’re avoiding

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To love and to labour is the sum of life.

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Ramana Reddy Advocate

Many years ago, when I was in high school, I read a short story in Reader's Digest about a father and daughter who used to run around the dining table playing a game every evening. The father would tie a soft cloth around the sharp corners of the table so she wouldn’t get hurt while they played.

Years later, the daughter who was the writer of the article, said something that stayed with me:

“If my father could, he would tie something soft around every rough edge I’d ever have to face in life.”

At the time, I just thought it was a sweet line from a sentimental essay but it stayed with me. I didn’t know why back then.

But now, as a father… I do.

My son, Dev, is 6 and just started Grade 1 - the big leagues of childhood. His bus comes early, his days are long, and he comes home carrying little pieces of the world on his tiny shoulders.

Some days he springs off the bus, talking a mile a minute. On other days, he's a little quieter. Those are the days he tells me someone made fun of him, or he felt left out, or something didn’t go the way he hoped.

And every time I hear it, something in me tightens ... that same feeling the father in that Reader’s Digest story must have felt. The instinct to protect, cushion and soften every sharp corner he’ll ever run into.

But life doesn’t let us wrap foam around everything. We can’t follow them into the classroom, into friendships, into disappointments, and into adulthood.

All we can do is be there at the end of the day when they come home with stories ... good ones, confusing ones, and sometimes painful ones.

For me, that was the part no one told me about parenting:

Parenting is mostly wishing you could take away the sharp edges… and realizing you can’t.

We can guide, comfort, model strength and kindness, but we can’t run the race for them.

There are only a handful of places where we can soften the sharp edges for our families, and one of them is simply making sure that if anything happens to us, the people we love aren’t left lost, confused, or unprotected.

That’s really what estate planning is about. At its core, it's not about paperwork or the 100s of types of trusts that feel overwhelming before you even begin.

It's just … cushioning the corners we can control.

P.S. Every month, I host a free webinar for Desi families in Texas about Estate Planning. The next one is on Saturday, Nov 22 at 11 AM CT.

If you want clarity without the overwhelm, join us. We’ll talk about Wills vs. Trusts, naming guardians, and planning across U.S. and India. Seats are free but limited. Click here to save your seat: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/5917632969698/WN_…

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