Effort Is Not Always the Answer

I have never been naturally good at stopping. The training in medical school and residency selects against it. The culture of high achievement selects against it. The internal monologue of someone who was once called ekerentane, the unwanted child, and who spent thirty years building evidence to the contrary, selects strongly against it.

But I have tried to force procedures that needed rest. I have tried to convince patients by volume of information when what they needed was to be heard. I have pushed on problems that solved themselves during the flight home when I stopped thinking about them.

The river does not go faster because you push on the water.

This week, I want you to identify one thing you have been trying harder at without progress, and I want you to give it three days off. Not forever. Three days. Put it down with intention, not with defeat. See what happens in the space.

The answer you have been looking for may already be present. It is simply waiting for you to stop making enough noise to hear it.

— Job