Doing the Hard but Necessary

Believe it or not, pursuing and achieving a Ph.D. wasn’t hard.  It wasn’t easy either.  But it was a means to an end.  It was the work that I needed to do to continue doing the work that I was enjoying the hell out of – teaching at a university.

I have now taught at a university for the better part of the last 25 years.  I find that fact to be incredible because it is longer than I have done anything and over the last nine years I have chaired a department.  Again, it is the longest that I have held any one job.  And it is also not hard, while at the same time it isn’t easy.

There have been several times over the last four-five years that I’ve wondered if I should move on and haven’t.  Timing and situation haven’t yet aligned for the right opportunity.  Now, however I think it might be time to make the push for the right opportunity.  It may not be easy to find a new position but, it won’t be something I consider to be hard.

So, if none of the things above are hard, what is?  This!  This is hard.  Peeling back the layers to what lies inside and writing about it.  That is hard.  Pushing on when I have felt like there’s nowhere to go.  That is hard.  Unraveling the person I always knew was hidden within…that was hard.  They were all hard because they did not come with a road map.  I didn’t have a template or a formula to follow.  It was trekking into the land of the unknown.  But to find and create who I am today, to untwist and unravel the messed up pieces, to find the confidence that I never knew I had, the hard work was more than worth it, it was necessary.

What is your necessary work?  It doesn’t have to be clear to you now and its usually revealed because where you are leaves you deeply unsettled.  It’s like watering fertile soil.  Something will grow and in the end, it, you will be beautiful!