Transformation is painful.
Recently, I’ve felt as though my body has grown. An old friend I hadn’t seen in years said I seemed taller. It wasn’t far fetched. I’ve been exercising consistently for a few years now and there are days where I feel sturdier and longer than ever.
Some days, though, I can hardly move. My body seems to seize. It’s muscular. I feel the fibers pulling in all the wrong ways and the only way I can straighten them is through an intense series of stretches and releases I’ve taught myself.
I’ve changed. But sometimes it hurts like hell.
These episodes of ‘twistedness’ tend to correspond with moments that take me back to places, both emotional and physical, that I haven’t returned to in some time, when I am metaphorically pulled in two directions at once.
I’ve been thinking lately of the task at hand — transformation. This word buzzes in my ear. It’s what everyone in tech wants but can’t seem to make happen.
Maybe it’s the pain. Maybe it’s the fact that we don’t talk about how moving in new directions won’t feel good all the time. We like narratives of ease and joy more than narratives of struggle and hardship. We’re loath to admit failure. We spin. We position. We frame. All this extra effort to make change sound painless, the pill easier to swallow.
But it’s not. It never has been.
— YTL