A few years ago I realized that if I’m too busy to take something on, I shouldn’t say “I don’t have the time”. In fact, I often do have the time. It’s not that hard to squeeze in some extra time for someone. What I don’t have – and what I can’t squeeze in – is more attention. Attention is a far more limited resource than time. So what I should say is “I don’t have the attention”. I may have 8 hours a day for work, but I probably have 4 hours a day for attention.

One summer, a guy wrote me out of the blue asking if he could intern for me. His email was great – clear, thoughtful, kind, inviting, confident but not pushy, and not too long (but long enough to say what he had to say without leaving anything out). He was studying at Harvard Business School and was going to be back in Chicago that summer. He asked if he could swing by and say hi. His email made it easy for me to say yes. So he did, and we had a great session. We spent maybe an hour or so together. I learned about his background, what kind of stuff he was interested in, what he wanted to learn, what he could teach us, etc. Then we riffed on a few ideas. It was natural, flowing, effortless. Really promising.

I realized I had the time. Every day is the same 24 hour cycle. Every workday around 8 hours. Surely I could have found even 20 minutes a day to work with him. But it wasn’t that. It wasn’t that I couldn’t find the time. I couldn’t find the attention — especially sustained attention. My mind fills up with a few key projects and that’s it. I’m absorbed by those. That’s where my attention is. Had I made 20 minutes here and there for him, I’d be physically present in that moment, but mentally I’d be elsewhere. And that’s not fair to either of us.

comfort foods that make us sick, entertainment that numbs us into forgetting what we actually want, purchasing decisions that promise to solve problems we can't even name. We scroll when we could be reading. We busy ourselves to postpone making meaning. We perform productivity instead of engaging with what's right in front of us.

Saying no to someone I used to say yes to — then sitting in the awkward space where no one celebrated my boundaries. No justification, no quick repair. Just the rawness of not being the person who pleases. And finding out that I could live with it.

I came to see I’m more resilient than I thought, and the world is larger than I ever imagined.

Walking away from a title, a platform, a role that once made me important — and waking up the next morning with no one asking how I am, no one needing me. Just myself and the dull throb of identity withdrawal.

I'm not suggesting you seek out suffering for its own sake or turn discomfort into another performance of self-improvement. I'm talking about something more fundamental — the willingness to stop shrinking in the face of difficulty, to stop making every uncomfortable feeling into evidence that things are wrong.

Most people treat discomfort like a problem to solve rather than information to receive.

The resistance to starting that project isn't always procrastination — it might be the friction of a work that holds meaning.

The practice isn't complicated. Try this: sit with the feeling of wanting to check your phone without checking it. Eat something nourishing that doesn't taste like pleasure.

get into the space between the feeling and your reaction to the feeling. This is where choice is.

The territory beyond your comfort zone isn't a place you visit occasionally when you're feeling brave. It's where life is actually happening. Everyone else is still trying to control their experience, still believing that the right combination of circumstances will finally deliver them from struggle.

When you feel the pull to escape - from the conversation, the feeling, the moment of truth - what is that urge really trying to protect you from discovering about yourself?

How many times have you mistaken the call to stay for the permission to leave, interpreting your discomfort as evidence you're in the wrong place rather than the right one?

This isn't about becoming someone who enjoys difficulty. It's about becoming someone who doesn't let difficulty make decisions for them. Someone who has learned to distinguish between the voice that protects and the voice that imprisons.