Hunting The Paper Tiger 103: Doing The Difficult Thing

There is something incredibly inspiring about watching someone decide to do something they know is going to be difficult.

You can almost see the moment when the decision gets made.

The fear may still be there. The discomfort certainly is. They may have no idea exactly what is going to happen once they begin. But somewhere inside, something settles into place.

This is something I have to do.

Then they take the first step.

I’ve been watching both my partner and my son do this recently, and it has been deeply inspiring.

My son is getting ready to start high school. Most of his friends are going to different schools, and he knew he would be walking into a place where he wouldn’t know many people.

So over the summer, he made a point of participating in as many school activities as he could.

He went. He introduced himself. When he felt uncomfortable, he started talking to people anyway.

And somewhere along the way, he realized something important: a lot of the people around him were even more scared than he was.

That realization changed things. Instead of only thinking about whether he would be alone, he could notice someone else who might be feeling alone too.

His reasoning was wonderfully straightforward: I don’t want to eat lunch alone. I don’t want to be alone. So I need to get in there and start talking to people.

There is so much courage in that.

I recognize that feeling. I was an only child, and we moved a lot when I was growing up. I became very good at making friends. But being good at it didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified.

You can be afraid and still know how to move.

I see the same thing in my partner as he navigates difficult conversations and complicated working relationships in his creative and professional life. I watch him find his way through things he would probably rather not have to face, because he knows avoiding them won’t lead where he wants to go.

There is something profoundly hopeful to me about watching people do this.

I’ve done a lot of work and training around facing difficult things myself, especially on the sparring floor, and I still sometimes shy away from them. But eventually, I find my way through. I look for a way to make the experience mine. Sometimes I even find a way to make it enjoyable.

When I’m standing at the edge of something I really don’t want to do, I often think about Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings, preparing to take the Paths of the Dead.

He knows he has to enter the mountain. He knows what he is going there to face, but he cannot know exactly what will happen once he steps inside or whether he will be able to accomplish what he needs to do.

There is a moment when you can see the weight of that. You can see it in his face.

Then comes the resolve.

His expression changes. You see it in his eyes.

And he goes.

That moment has stayed with me because so much of doing a difficult thing happens right there.

There is the moment before, when we can still imagine all the reasons not to go.

Then there is the decision.

I am going in.

We may not know what we will encounter. We may not know what we will say, how someone else will respond, whether the thing we are attempting will work, or even exactly how we will get ourselves through it.

We take the first step anyway.

Once we are inside it, something changes. We can interact with what is actually happening instead of everything we imagined might happen. We respond. We adjust. We find the next step, and then the next one.

Maybe that willingness comes from trust.

Trust that there is something worthwhile on the other side.

Trust in the people who have walked through their own difficult places before us.

Trust in the people beside us.

Or simply wanting what lies beyond the difficult thing badly enough that we are willing to walk through the tunnel to reach it.

I think we need more of that willingness.

The courage to say, This is difficult. I don’t know exactly what is going to happen. But I know I need to go.

And then to begin.

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