This morning I sat at the kitchen table rolling my feet back and forth over a bag of frozen cranberries and swearing at someone named Emilie.
Emilie is my physical therapist. She’s scary-smart and I trust her completely. She’s expensive, and would be worth it at an even higher rate.
AND, I don’t want to take her advice. The advice that I seek her out and pay her for. I wheedle with her and try to bargain to give me different exercises, ones that I know I can do. That I like doing. “Those won’t solve your problem,” she tells me. “And you know why I know you need them? The fact that you don’t like them tells me you really need to be doing them.” I know she’s right. I pay her because she’s right.
But solving my problem the right way is inconvenient. It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable. I look for excuses not to do it.
Luckily Emilie doesn’t let me get away with that. She’s just the right amount of encouraging and tough. I’m seeing that what she tells me to do is working, so I swear at her and I try to do what she tells me.
As a smart person, it’s tempting to go look for answers — to research, to try to understand, to read a little more. But sometimes what matters more is doing the things you know you are supposed to do, that are uncomfortable, unfamiliar, a little awkward.
I wonder if you have an Emilie in your life whose wisdom about work you would prefer not to take.
