Instant Results—Just Add Time

Time is a funny thing. It moves steadily, predictably, second-by-second, never speeding up or slowing down no matter how much we wish it would. And yet it can feel entirely different depending on whether you’re the one doing the work or simply witnessing the result.

When I was pregnant, I thought about it constantly. Every twinge, every wave of nausea, every shift in my body reminded me I was growing a human life. It was impossible to forget. Then one night my husband said, almost casually, “For a minute, I forgot you were pregnant.” Not because he didn’t care, of course he cared, but because I wasn’t showing yet. The reminder wasn’t staring him in the face the way it was for me.

The same thing happens with my hair. I’m growing it out from a pixie (Again. What can I say? I love switching it up), and someone commented on how long it’s getting. I was surprised to hear that because I hadn’t noticed at all. I see it every day. The change is microscopic, incremental from my perspective. But to someone who hasn’t watched it inch forward strand by strand, the difference is obvious.

Creative work is no different. "Hey, are you still writing that book?"

You can’t fully comprehend someone’s writing journey by the finished book. Maybe they drafted it in a hundred days. Maybe they’ve been working on the same story for twenty years. But we don’t see any of that. We see the polished cover, the crisp pages, and their name printed neatly at the bottom. We see the end result, not the long, often arduous road that led there.

As consumers, we aren’t present for the doubt, the exhilaration, the rewrites, the late nights, the discarded chapters, the breakthroughs, the tears, or the joy. And because we weren’t there, time compresses. The work looks instantaneous. Effortless.

But for the creator, time stretched. It dragged. It raced. It tangled itself around their life in ways no one else will ever fully understand.

So whether it’s a book, a baby, or a head of hair finally brushing your shoulders, the world only sees the completed project.

Times does have one consistency: when you’re up against a deadline, whether professional or self inflicted, there never seems to be enough of it.