~by Haley Lynn Gray~
On the Saturday, I walked across a stage at Duke and collected my MBA. Years of work, and a considerable amount of sacrifice, in one very good moment.
Within the same week, my father’s health took a serious turn.
That’s how it tends to arrive. Not one thing at a time, tidily spaced, but the best day of your life sitting a few days away from one of the hardest.
You don’t get to finish feeling one thing
The instinct is to think there’s something wrong with you for being unable to enjoy the good thing properly — or for laughing at something two days after bad news.
There isn’t. Both are true simultaneously, and being pulled between them is simply what a full life feels like. People who appear to experience one emotion at a time are usually just less willing to say so.
What I’ve learned about the highs
Take them when they arrive. Properly, at the time. The temptation, particularly for women, is to acknowledge an achievement briefly and get straight back to work.
You worked for years for that stage. Standing on it and feeling it is not self-indulgence.
Tell people. Not humblebragging — saying the thing out loud. Women are trained out of this early, and then wonder why nobody knows what they’ve done.
And write them down. During a hard stretch you will genuinely forget you had a good year. A short list of the things that went well is surprisingly useful evidence later.
And about the lows
They don’t cancel the high. My father’s decline didn’t unmake the degree. Two separate facts, held at once.
Lower the bar for a while. Decide what has to be excellent and let the rest be adequate, rather than failing at everything equally.
And let people help, specifically. Name the task. “Could you collect the children Thursday” is answerable; “let me know if you need anything” isn’t.
Why this belongs on a business site
Because your business doesn’t get a version of you that’s had a calm month.
It gets you in the week you graduated and the week your father was admitted, frequently at the same time. Plan for the hard weeks rather than the good ones, build so that a bad fortnight doesn’t take the business with it, and extend the same understanding to your people — because they’re doing this too, mostly without telling you.
Highs and lows, usually in the same week. That’s not a sign you’re doing it badly. That’s the deal.
