The Invisible Work

What's on my mind?

I was mowing my lawn this weekend and thinking about how proud I am of the way it looks.

After four years of experimenting, adjusting, observing, and occasionally getting it wrong, it finally feels like the lawn I set out to grow.

When I told my dad about it, I immediately qualified the win.

“I’m not sure if it was the last application or the combination of four years of experimentation finally paying off.”

He told me I needed to take more credit for the wins.

He is probably right.

People often give us credit for the last visible step, but almost never see the years of invisible work that made it possible.

The last application may have helped.

But it was not one application.

It was four years of trying to understand what was true.

It was changing my mind.

It was questioning my own assumptions.

It was staying open to the possibility that the answer might be different from the one I wanted.

The lawn has changed because the person caring for it has changed.

I have seen the same pattern in my own life.

A photograph of me from more than ten years ago recently appeared as a social media memory. I expected to notice an older version of my body.

Instead, I noticed the person.

I was smiling in the photo, but I could see how unhappy I was.

I was hiding in the open.

The changes between that person and the person I am today did not happen in one breakthrough moment.

They came from years of invisible work.

Meditating when I could not tell whether it was helping.

Learning about health, food, biology, and myself.

Doing hard things before I felt ready.

Getting up again.

Continuing.

This morning, I looked at the cold plunge and thought, “You can skip a day.”

That thought was quickly replaced by another.

“You can do hard things.”

Then I stopped thinking and got in.

The cold water is not really the point.

It reminds me that I can act before my mind finishes negotiating against me.

There was a time in my life when my goal was not really to lose weight, build a business, or grow a beautiful lawn.

I wanted to become someone who woke up and wanted to live.

Today, I sometimes wake up during the night hoping it is finally time to start the next day.

That may be the biggest win of my life.

It did not happen overnight.

It was built quietly, over years, when there was not much visible progress to celebrate.

There is a quote that says a tree cannot grow to heaven unless its roots reach down into hell.

Maybe that is why we should be careful when admiring only what is visible.

The roots matter.

The darkness matters.

The years when nothing seems to be changing matter.

I am grateful I did not stop.

And when I tell someone, “I’m glad you’re here,” I mean it.

Sometimes I am also reminding myself.

I am especially glad that I am still here.