The Hard Work of Being Patient

What’s on my mind?

Doing hard things.

Or maybe not doing them.

I skipped my cold plunge this morning.

I know.

Scandalous.

If you understand how committed I get to things, you understand why this felt like a big decision.

Last week, in the middle of a pretty impressive pity party, I didn’t want to get into the cold plunge.

I did it anyway.

I stood there repeating one of the phrases I use whenever I’m trying to talk myself out of something:

“You can do hard things.”

Then another thought showed up.

Just because I can do hard things, do I always have to?

Even asking that question makes me uncomfortable.

It sounds dangerously close to making an excuse.

I don’t accept “lazy.”

I was raised with a simple response to almost anything:

“Get off your butt and do it.”

That lesson helped get me here.

Get up.

Go to work.

Do what you said you were going to do.

Don’t wait for someone else.

I’m grateful for that part of me.

But I’m starting to see that the same lesson can carry me past places where I should stop.

Last week, it left me sitting on a five-gallon bucket in the heat, unable to stand. I wrote about that experience in “What If No One Comes?”

My body had been communicating with me.

I just didn’t like what it was saying.

My brain had already decided that the work needed to be completed. Therefore, my body needed to get with the program.

I’m tougher than this.

I don’t need a break.

You can do hard things.

Those thoughts have carried me through a lot.

They have also carried me past some information I needed to hear.

I often say during difficult conversations:

“I’m open to the possibility that I’m wrong. I hope you are too.”

I mean it.

But apparently, I haven’t always applied that idea to conversations with myself.

What if yesterday’s decision was made using yesterday’s information?

What if the conditions changed?

Changing my mind doesn’t necessarily mean I’m making an excuse.

It may mean I’m paying attention.

That brings me to something more difficult to admit.

I’ve always believed I could be the best in the world at something.

Just one thing.

I haven’t done it.

At 47 years old, I can look back and see ability, effort, and an enormous amount of work.

I can also see my attention spread across a hundred different things.

To believe I might be capable of becoming truly exceptional at something, but to know I’ve never given one thing the focus required to find out—that hurts.

My problem has never been a lack of willingness to work.

What if my work has been part of the problem?

That’s an uncomfortable question.

Working on a hundred things feels productive.

Choosing one thing means leaving ninety-nine things undone.

It means accepting that I won’t maximize every opportunity.

It means waiting long enough to see whether the thing I chose actually works.

It also means risking the possibility that I give something my full attention and still don’t become the best.

Maybe staying busy has protected me from having to find that out.

Right now, the thing I believe I have the best shot at is perfecting my extraction and brewing process for lawns.

I have my brewer set up exactly the way I want it. I didn’t take shortcuts.

Now I need to put my microscope beside it and begin the slow work.

Choose a recipe.

Brew it.

Take samples every hour.

Record the water temperature, air temperature, ingredients, timing, and everything else that might affect the result.

Watch until I can identify peak biological activity.

Then do it again.

One recipe at a time.

One sample at a time.

One observation at a time.

This is the kind of work I say I want.

It is also going to require something I struggle to give.

Time.

Worms need the right temperature, pH, moisture, food, and time.

If the conditions aren’t right, their health suffers. The castings cannot be rushed.

The biology in the brewer doesn’t care how ambitious I am either.

It will respond to the conditions I create, not the schedule in my head.

I understand that when I’m looking through a microscope.

I struggle to accept it when I’m looking in the mirror.

Patience feels harder than work because I’m not straining.

When I’m lifting buckets, I can feel the effort. When I’m working through a long list, I can point to everything I completed.

Waiting doesn’t always look like progress.

But observation is part of the experiment.

The waiting is part of the process.

And maybe focus isn’t only choosing what to work on.

Maybe focus is allowing everything else to remain unfinished.

I’m not getting rid of “You can do hard things.”

I still believe it.

But the hard thing may not be another cold plunge, another bucket, or another item crossed off the list.

The hard thing may be choosing one process and staying with it.

It may be accepting that the information changed and allowing myself to change with it.

It may be leaving ninety-nine interesting things undone while I give one important thing the time it actually requires.

Maybe becoming the best in the world at something won’t require me to work harder.

Maybe it will require me to sit beside one brewer, look through one microscope, and resist the urge to become good at something else.