The Correction: Entry 03.5

The Correction: Entry 03.5

Thursday. Still in it.

Nobody told me to perform.

That’s the thing I keep coming back to. Nobody sat me down and said — right, from now on, make it look effortless. Make the capable look natural. Don’t let anyone see the cost. I just… started doing it. Somewhere along the way the doing became the performing of doing. And I got very, very good at both.

Here’s what hyper competence actually looks like from the inside. It’s not confidence. It’s maintenance. It’s the constant low-level work of making sure nobody sees the seams. The emails answered at midnight so the morning looks clean. The problems solved before they’re even named so nobody ever has to worry. The face that says I’ve got this even on the days when getting this is the hardest thing you’ve ever done.

The exhausting part isn’t the doing. It’s keeping up the appearance that the doing is effortless.

And here’s what I’ve realised — that performance is a disservice. To the people around you most of all. Because when you make everything look effortless, you quietly teach them that effort isn’t required. That hard things aren’t hard. That the standard you’re performing is somehow normal. And then they measure themselves against something that was never real to begin with.

It’s a disservice to yourself too. But it starts with them.

You perform capable for long enough, you forget you’re performing.

Because the moment you let someone see the cost — the moment you say actually, this is hard, actually I’m tired, actually I could use some help — the whole architecture shifts. And I’ve spent so long building that architecture that I don’t fully know who I am without it.

That’s what I’m sitting with this week.

Not the competence. The performance of it.

There’s a difference. I’m only just starting to feel where the line is.

More on Monday.