johnmaconline

I packed the bags and slung them around my shoulders a while ago and set off down the road.

Actually, it’s not just the tidy bags with shoulder straps. I’m also juggling the stragglers that wouldn’t fit in the bags. The two shirts still on hangers, a fan with its cord swinging like a tripwire, and an open box of kitchen odds and ends threatening to spill.

And now I’m standing at the gate.

The guard’s looking at me through the safety of the guardhouse window. He’s on the phone checking my credentials. 

I don’t know what he’ll say. 

So I wait. Trying to keep it all from hitting the ground. My forearms are burning. My back is tired. Things are slipping. I readjust every few seconds.

Any moment now, he’ll wave me through.
Or he won’t.

If he does, I’ll stumble through, drop everything in a heap, and let my muscles recover for just a minute.
If he doesn’t, I’ll have to turn around. And I’ll lug the same load back down the road I just came.

Either way, the waiting will be over.

It’s not just willpower. 

You might know the famous “Marshmallow Experiment,” but if not, go to YouTube and search for it. There are dozens of examples. 

You’ll find lots of funny, antsy, and cringeworthy moments of pre-K kids trying to decide whether one marshmallow now is better than two in a few minutes. 

The popular and original hypotheses from this experiment were centered on personal willpower. The kids who waited had more self-control, and that self-control predicted better life outcomes. Better grades, better jobs, better lives.

It’s a tidy, comforting story. Willpower equals success. Delay gratification and you’ll go farther. Plus, as parents, it’s a life skill we can model and teach our kids. Be patient. 

As it turns out, however, maybe it’s not just about self-control. 

It’s also about trust. Would the second marshmallow really show up? Would the adults actually keep their word? That single marshmallow sitting in front of them is a sure thing. 

If a child has been disappointed by adults in their life, they’ll probably go with the sure thing.

It’s also the Powerball dilemma. $500M today, or $1B in annuity over time. But that’s not really a dilemma, is it? Neither is a choice between $5k today or $1B later. If you were deciding between $500k or $5M today and $1B later, maybe that’s a dilemma.  

The point is that you have a price where the unknown future promise might be worth foregoing the sure thing now.

The real test isn’t about patience. It’s about belief.

Do you believe the promise of a future that’s worth waiting for? 

The curtain rose.

And all of the nightmares came true. The audience didn’t get it. They paid too much. They’re leaving angry.

So then what?

You look in the mirror. You figure out what you can do better. What you need to work on. Your message, your story, your skills, your delivery. 

But also, you look at the audience. Are they the right ones? Are these the people like us? Is this for them?

Then you get back to work. 

The finish line. The summit. The big goal. 

What happens when you get there?

We see it publicly in pro sports and entrepreneurs who make it big. You did it, now what? 

But it’s not just them. It’s you and me also. We’re all going somewhere. We’re all going to arrive. Many will arrive at the destination they’ve been working toward. 

It’s not really about the arrival. 

It’s the daily motion. The effort. The people. The practice. The identity we shape, not the title we wear.

The win is just a moment. The becoming is the legacy.

Once we realize the destination isn’t the point, we can stop waiting to get there and start living here.

You’re backstage. 

You can hear the murmur of the crowd on the other side. The crew bustles around you. Excitement fills the air. But the curtain is down. There’s no risk yet. There’s anticipation, but that’s all so far. 

You know your lines. You’ve rehearsed. You’re confident in what you can do. You’ve done the work, and you have the skills. You know the audience has paid a fair price. 

But your heart doesn’t care about any of that.

Your mouth is dry. Your hands tingle. Your heart is suddenly a percussionist with something to prove.

When the curtain rises, it could go either way. The standing ovation and the audience satisfied. Or they won’t care, didn’t get it, and think they paid too much. 

And that’s what makes it real.

Because if it were certain, it wouldn’t be worth doing. If it were easy, it wouldn’t matter. That mix of hope and fear — of maybe and maybe not — is the cost of doing something that matters.

You don’t get to skip this moment. You shouldn’t skip this moment.

So you breathe.

You take that step forward and put a smile on your face. 

The curtain rises.

When a fire hose — sometimes even a garden hose — gets loose, look out.

It whips, spins, jumps, and makes a mess. It’s erratic. Even a little dangerous. It certainly doesn’t behave the way you want it to.

If you try chasing the end, you’ll never gain control and maybe even get bruised. Just when you think you’ve got it, or know where it’s going, it darts out of the way and leaves you a soaking mess.

Better to find its source and grab it there. It’s steady there. Get your feet solidly underneath you and walk it out toward the end. Slow and steady. Breathe. Focus on the outcome. 

Guide it to where you want to end up.

Because no one tames a hose by chasing the end. 

Have you ever reached for the hot water knob on a sink and either the handle turns the wrong way, or the cold and hot water knobs are backward?

It’s jarring.  

First, you freeze. Confused. It takes you a blip to get your bearing. You might even, just for a second, question yourself, “Am I doing this right?”

Then, you figure it out. Because it’s an easy problem to solve. Oh, turn the knob the other way. Or, the hot water must be on the right side. And, “No, I’m not doing it wrong. This thing is wrong.”

Is it wrong? What makes us think it’s wrong? What gives us the expectation of how it should work?

Intuition, of course. Built up through years of using sinks that conform to the US Plumbing standard of how a sink and its knobs should work. That standard has a whole history behind it that seeks to accommodate right-handed people. 

Sinks that don’t conform to this standard won’t land the plumber in jail, nor will some enforcement agency confiscate the contraband sink. 

But it’s jarring for the user.

If you’re making something for someone else, is that what you want? Possibly. That might be exactly what you’re going for. You need them to think differently or feel something.

But if not, the Law of Least Surprise is your friend. 

Know your user. Know how you want them to feel.

[P.S. I have a sink in my house on which the cold water knob spins backwards. After 23 years, it’s still jarring. I still spin it the wrong way every time. Every time. Why haven’t I changed it?]