A good man takes care of his family. He should be like a shepherd with his care, and do what is right for his flock. That ideal sounds fine, but some sheep can be very unruly. You will know if you have a family not because it feels good, but because it’s joy and pain. That’s life, you boys.
You can never fully take care of your family unless you take care of yourself first. To provide, you must first survive and thrive.

Twenty-Five

Something mysteriously formed,
Born before heaven and earth.
In the silence and the void,
Standing alone and unchanging,
Ever present and in motion.
Perhaps it is the mother of ten thousand things.
I do not know its name.
Call it Tao.
For lack of a better word, I call it great.

Being great, it flows.
It flows far away.
Having gone far, it returns.

Therefore, “Tao is great;
Heaven is great;
Earth is great;
The king is also great.”
These are the four great powers
of the universe,
And the king is one of them.

Man follows the earth.
Earth follows heaven.
Heaven follows the Tao.
Tao follows what is natural.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu
Translation by Ray Burgess