The Myth of 'Doing the Work'

"Do the work." "Trust the process." "Earn it." And yeah, sometimes that's true. Some things just take reps. No shortcut. But somewhere along the way, we started believing that progress has to feel like labor. That if it wasn't hard, it doesn't count. That suffering is proof you're on the right path. What if that's wrong?

Some of the most important progress doesn't look like work at all. It looks like a conversation that shifts your angle by two degrees. A realization in the shower. A question that dissolves a problem you were about to spend six months brute-forcing. The highest leverage "work" often feels like nothing. It's invisible. Internal. Instant. That's not cheating. That's just how insight works. The grind has its place. But if you're grinding in the wrong direction, you're just getting faster at going nowhere. Sometimes the real work is stopping long enough to see clearly.

And that doesn't require discipline. It requires space.