Things have been falling into place this week – and it has nothing to do with luck. I’ve realized that when I try to force things, especially creative projects or major decisions, they tend to resist. Timing has its own current, and lately I’ve been learning to move with it instead of trying to control it.
Working in publishing makes that lesson impossible to avoid. As the year winds down, you can feel the invisible weight of the calendar shifting. In our world, you’re always living months ahead – juggling issues that haven’t hit the press while mentally stepping into a year that hasn’t even begun. People see the decisions I’ve made, not the choices I’ve had. There’s a lot that happens between what you want to do and what you can do, and the older I get, the more I realize that patience and peace live somewhere in that space between.
Effort Meets Readiness
That kind of forward pull can mess with your pace. It makes you want to push harder and force progress. But I’ve been reminded that the best results often come from not forcing the outcome. Timing, patience, and trust do far more than pressure ever could. Things fall into place when your effort finally meets readiness – not when you wrestle them into submission.
Ships are safe in the harbor, but that’s not what they’re built for. The same goes for us. Growth demands movement, but not chaos. It asks for direction without desperation.
I’ve been seeing this truth show up as I’ve been writing my presentation for the Science to the Station conference next week. It’s about the relationship between pride, biology, and performance. As I’ve been shaping it, I keep thinking about how firefighters – myself included – have this instinct to manipulate systems. We believe we can push through anything, even the laws of our own bodies. I tried to outthink science once, and science won. It kicked my ass. It forced me to realize that giving in and giving up are not the same thing. One is surrender; the other is defeat. One creates alignment; the other destroys it.
Turning Around With Purpose
Why would you walk miles in the wrong direction knowingly? You wouldn’t. You’d stop dead in your tracks, turn around, and head back. That’s what this stage of my career feels like – not slowing down, just finally moving with purpose instead of momentum.
This week’s World Series reminded me of that again. The game went 18 innings, and a lot of people stayed up until three in the morning to see how it ended. The next day, the firehouse looked like a zombie convention – bloodshot eyes, double espressos, the kind of silence you hear after a loss. The old me would’ve stayed up, too, just to prove I could keep going. The new me went to bed at 10:30 p.m. and watched the highlights in the morning. That’s the difference I’ve had to learn the hard way more than once.
And the truth is, the point isn’t to bend the rock. You’re meant to see it for what it is. Pride fights battles that don’t matter; purpose saves its strength for what does.
