There’s a lesson I’ve learned approximately forty-seven times in my life. You’d think by lesson number twelve or so, it would stick. It doesn’t. And I’ve recently made peace with the fact that it never will — and that’s not actually a problem.
The lesson is this: you can’t rush the process.
I know. I know. You’ve heard this before. We all have. It’s on motivational posters and Instagram captions and probably embroidered on a pillow somewhere. But knowing something and actually understanding it — in your bones, in your gut, in the quiet moments before you fall asleep — are completely different things.
I spent most of my twenties in a hurry. I wanted to be further along. More settled. More sure of myself. I looked at people a few years ahead of me and thought: I need to get there. Now. Faster. I treated my own timeline like a problem to be solved rather than a life to be lived.
The funny thing is, the moments I remember most from that period aren’t the milestones. They’re the in-between parts. The random Tuesday conversations. The detours. The times things went sideways and I had to figure out what to do next.
Those moments taught me more than any goal I was sprinting toward.
The thing about urgency
There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from being in a constant hurry. It’s not physical tiredness — it’s more like a low-level static in your brain that never quite turns off. A background hum of not enough, not yet, not there.
I used to mistake that static for motivation. I thought the anxiety was what was pushing me forward. Turns out it was mostly just anxiety.
Real motivation — the kind that actually sustains you — feels completely different. It’s quieter. More patient. It doesn’t need you to panic; it just needs you to show up.
What actually changes things
I’ve talked to a lot of people about this over the years — students, friends, people I’ve met at random events who somehow ended up sharing their whole life story with me. And the pattern I keep seeing is this: the people who make real, lasting progress aren’t the ones who push hardest. They’re the ones who stay in the game longest.
Consistency over intensity. Presence over speed. Showing up, even imperfectly, even when you’re tired and uncertain and slightly convinced you have no idea what you’re doing.
On re-learning the same things
Here’s what I’ve stopped being embarrassed about: the fact that I have to re-learn things I already know.
I know that comparing myself to others is pointless. I’ve written about it. And then I’ll be scrolling through my phone at midnight and feel a very familiar sinking feeling about someone else’s seemingly perfect trajectory, and I’ll realize: oh, here we are again.
And now, instead of beating myself up for forgetting, I just try to notice it faster. That’s all growth really is, I think. Not a straight line from confused to sorted. Just a gradually shortening gap between losing your footing and finding it again.
If you’re in the middle of something hard — something that feels slow and uncertain and like everyone else is moving faster than you — the middle is where most of the important stuff happens. Not at the finish line. In the mess, in the process, in the ordinary Tuesday when nothing dramatic happens but you show up anyway.
The lesson I keep learning is that the journey isn’t a distraction from the destination. The journey is the whole point.