#10 - The Long Middle
In any endeavor, there are three stages.
Beginning. Doing. Overcoming.
The start of a project is filled with lofty aspirations and uninformed optimism.
In time, that energy settles into the mundane of repetition.
For those that submit to the process, some form of overcoming may occur.
Most of life is spent in the long middle.
Where feedback loops become fewer and further between.
Where external motivation is transformed into internal drive.
Where a medium is truly understood through intimate struggle.
It’s lonely. No matter how social the thing is.
The only way through is to break the thing into little mind games with yourself.
Essentially, you create fractals within the whole.
Little challenges that reinvigorate your efforts.
Small milestones, achievements, and goals to push forward to.
None of these things are the whole, so achieving them is a shallow win.
But in pursuing the work consistently, you move closer to the end result.
And maybe that’s all that matters - progress. Moving forward.
And maybe that progress is a cover story for a bigger journey of finding self.
And maybe that’s the point of starting in the first place - to discover meaning.
Meaning that can only be found in the long middle.
Where there is no reward and little recognition.
And perhaps that’s the reason so few people ever reach “success”.
It’s something emergent that only appears once you submit to the process.
Once you decide that this is what you’re doing. For better or for worse.
It’s subtle and humble. Not the stuff that makes for Hollywood movies.
Finding gratitude for the process is overcoming. That’s winning.