Hard Versus New

Soon after I uploaded yesterday’s blog post, I went back to work on my lab. I worked until I was mentally exhausted. I tried to power through, but I was struggling to think straight. It felt bad.

I shut my laptop and took a walk around the block. The same words kept coming to mind: “This is so hard.” Deep breath. Look at the sky, look in the tiny free library box. Stand up straight, smile for the neighbors. Still, “this is so hard.”

Stepping back into my building, a moment of clarity: “It’s not that it’s hard. It’s new.”

I’ve never done this before, and that’s okay. I’m hoping that I can adjust to leading with this attitude. There’s more possibilities in a challenge being new than hard.

“This is hard” suggests I am being walled off from the possibility of discovering the answer. “This is new” is an invitation to remain curious.