Breaking Through

Sometimes it feels as though the hard things are hard and the easy things are hard, and that you're never going to make any progress at all. After all, shouldn't hard work and desire and general aptitude make most things possible? Isn't that what we were taught growing up? Learn what you're supposed to learn, and keep at it, and you'll make it, whatever and wherever "it" is.
 
But some days, it feels as though all the general aptitude in the world just can't keep up fast enough with the world. Sometimes it feels as though everything you've learned has somehow become worthless when you turned your back for an instant. Sometimes it feels as though it will take a lot more "sticking with it" than you have the energy for.
 
Luckily, sometimes, there is a breakthrough. Some piece of a task that suddenly clicks. A new view of a situation that reminds you that you know more than you think. A long-lost item that gets found in the search. A person who reminds you that the aptitude is still there. It's just resting up for a "need to know" mission.
 
Sometimes, when you least expect it, there is a breakthrough. It's not always easy to hang in for. It often comes far beyond the time in which you would have given up. But it is possible, and it's real, and it can be what keeps you going until the next one.
 
I have almost given up, a few times this week, and too many times to count over the years. I have almost given up on jobs, on home improvement, on teaching my kids something I want them to know. But I've seen it happen--that "ding" of breakthrough, that little thought bubble of "aha!" So I'm hanging in. Staying in the game until that breakthrough comes.