This week has been rough.

Job hunting feels like watching paint dry. Progress crawling at a snail's pace.

But something saved my soul.

I opened Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet"

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"You are good when you walk to your goal firmly with bold steps,
yet you are not evil when you go thither limping,
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even those who limp go not backward.
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But you who are strong and swift see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness."

It struck me like lightning.

I am bold. I take bold steps. There's nothing wrong with that.

With the right hands in the right context, I could shine even more.

When I'm limping ahead - like sometimes these days - I'm not bad.

But I'm strong and swift, and I don't need to slow down in front of slow people thinking that's kindness.

I've been holding myself back.

Former colleagues tell me people get scared when I ask direct questions too soon. Like when I asked about their dreams for the future, whether they'd dare to talk about that.

"What if you don't talk about the future, then how will that happen?" I said.

I see their discomfort. Sharing dreams at work feels vulnerable. When someone knows your dream, they know you intimately. They could use it for bad.

But they could also use it for good.

The truth is, I move fast. I cut through surface bullshit to what actually matters.

And I've been apologizing for it.

Gibran says there's a longing for your giant self in all of us. In some, that longing is "a torrent rushing with might to the sea." In others, it's "a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends."

I'm the torrent.

Always have been.

The part that saved my soul: "But let him not longs much say to him who longs little, 'Wherefore are you slow and halting?'"

I don't need to slow down so others feel comfortable.

I don't need to dim my intensity thinking it's kind.

I move at my speed. You move at yours.

That's not cruelty - that's honoring the giant self that demands to be met.

There's this urgency I feel from my gigantic inner life. How vast it is. How it should be met.

For years, I thought this urgency was impatience or ego.

But it's not.

It's the torrent rushing to the sea, carrying secrets from the hillside and songs from the forest.

Why would I dam that up?

Why would you?

The truly good doesn't ask the naked "Where is your garment?" The truly good doesn't ask you to be slower so they feel better about their pace.

The truly good honors the speed at which life wants to move through you.

Job hunting is slow. The world moves at bureaucratic pace. Fine.

But I don't have to.

I can ask the deep questions. I can move with bold steps. I can refuse to limp before the lame.

The recognition feels like freedom.

Yeah, I move fast.

I move fucking fast.

That's how it works.

with all my love,​
Khuyen

P.S. What's your natural pace that you've been apologizing for?

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