The hill

Slight predicament. I’m on the bike, I’ve been dictating into my phone for twenty-some-odd minutes. It’s very sunny and very hot, but I’ve got some momentum and I’m just starting up the hill on Hancock. I’m ready to turn off the voice memo and switch to a podcast, but stopping in the sun, going uphill, sounds really not fun.

And that’s kind of interesting.

When you’re working on a project and you get to the hard part, there’s definitely a temptation to quit—to say this isn’t fun anymore, I’m out. But maybe the answer is to keep going a little bit farther before you take a break. Maybe you’re just stuck on the side of a hill, and you’ve got to keep cranking to get to the top. Maybe it’s just a little farther to the shady spot where you can pull over, chug some water, end your voice note, and throw on a nerdy podcast.

I should be clear: there’s plenty of times when it’s not worth it to keep going. Say you’ve been going uphill for weeks. Say there’s no shade on the other side. Say you ran out of water. That’s maybe when you say time to take a break, I’m calling an Uber.

But a lot of the time, the hard stuff is just a hill. Just a big, sunny fucking hill. Stopping on that hill sucks. You keep going, you get to the top, you get the downhill and the reward. Don’t stop. There’s something to be said for that.

I’ve been thinking about this as a general rule for the myriad of projects I’ve got in flight right now—and maybe a rule I should really lean into. My to-be-named vermouth project is in an interesting place right now, for example. Frankly, it’s getting a little hard. There are some doubters. Some headwinds. A lot of data points that might convince a rational person this probably isn’t a good idea. But it’s also fun. I can do a lot of it on my own. There’s no timeline. The creative process is genuinely interesting.

And I’ve got a pretty good sense that if I keep going over the hill, I might catch some momentum. It’s early enough in the game that it’s worth pedaling a little longer, just to see what’s on the other side.

For the record, I got on the bike today hoping I’d dictate a post, and for twenty minutes I rambled and muttered about nothing. Then the road tilted. The muse came calling. The legs kicked into gear. And I dictated this one on the way up.