Jonathan Roseland (@jroseland)

Today, my son is 1-year-old This year has been the craziest learning curve of my life. #Life has never been more hectic, yet happier. I learned to love and sacrifice in a way I never have before; beheld a deeper dimension of beauty in my wife--stuff you've a million times before from new parents. But here's what surprised me... #Fatherhood turned out to be EASIER than I expected. My whole life, I heard these horror stories about being a new parent (underslept all the time, unproductive, overwhelmed, never a moment of peace, insane expenses, no "me" time, sex life disappears, etc). BUT parenting Phoenix turned out to be surprisingly EASY... He started sleeping through the night after 3 months. He's not a little brat (he's pretty easy to deal with most days). My wife mostly takes care of him during the weekdays while I work like normal. It's been a #productive year; I decreased my working hours while increasing my income. I finished and released my second book this year. I improved my professional skills (although I "failed fast" to learn AI automation). And I worked out 61 times since he was born. Did we just get lucky with an extraordinarily easy baby? Don't think so... Here's the big #lifelesson from 1 year of fatherhood: wisdom accumulated and applied prior to challenge ROIs majorly. For about a decade prior, I was a (& REMAIN an unapologetic) personal development control freak and information addict. And I can now see how all the personal growth things have paid off in year 1 of fatherhood, not being so arduous. A few examples... I didn't want to suck at parenting, so I read a couple of books about parenting. I learned about "peaceful #parenting"-you make your life A LOT easier as a parent if your child doesn't have chronically heightened cortisol from you yelling at them, hitting them, or mutilating their genitals. I also studied the vaccination issue thoroughly, and we decided against all vaccines; he's brilliantly healthy (he got ill once for about 3 days). Instead of staying angry about politics, I moved to a country that aligns with my politics and... It's a pretty great place to raise a family. I'm proud to have contributed to the Bulgarian nation. Finally, year one has been massively validating of my choice of a virtuous woman. She's risen heroically to the challenge of motherhood 365 days a year without much complaint. (Good job, babe, we're one year closer to cruising in a free Ferrari.)