The Tyranny of Completion Dates
The fork clatters against the ceramic plate, a sound far too loud for a Wednesday evening in a dining room that smells faintly of lemon-scented floor wax and roasted chicken. Across the table, Aunt Sarah tilts her head, that universal gesture of sympathetic inquiry, and asks the question that feels like a lead weight. ‘So, Jackson, are you doing better now? You look… better.’ She says it with a cheerful lilt, the kind of tone people use when they are desperate for closure. They don’t want the messy details of a soul in mid-renovation; they want to know the scaffolding is coming down. They want a finish date they can circle on their calendars. I look down at my plate, counting the 9 peas left in a pile of mashed potatoes, and I realize I have no idea how to answer her without ruining the vibe of the dinner party. I am a corporate trainer. I spend 49 hours a week telling people how to optimize their workflows and reach their milestones by the end of Q3. I am paid to believe in timelines. But here, in the quiet reality of my own skin, the timeline is a myth.
We live in a culture that tolerates a 199-day lead time for a new software rollout or a 29-month construction project for a bridge, yet becomes incredibly suspicious the moment human healing refuses to follow a tidy, linear path. If you are recovering from an eating disorder, or burnout, or a loss that feels like a limb was removed, the world gives you a grace period of maybe 39 days before they start looking for the ‘return to normal.’ It is an exhausting performance. You start to internalize their impatience. You start to look at your own progress like a failing stock, wondering why you aren’t seeing a consistent 19 percent growth week-over-week.
I tried to meditate this morning, a practice my therapist suggested to help with the noise. I set a timer for 9 minutes. I checked the clock 19 times. My mind was a chaotic spreadsheet of things I haven’t ‘fixed’ yet. I am the man who teaches people how to be efficient, yet I cannot even sit with myself for 539 seconds without feeling like I am falling behind on a schedule that doesn’t actually exist.
The Engine Fallacy
There is this weirdly persistent misconception that once you start treatment, improvement follows a socially acceptable trajectory. You go to the facility, you talk to the experts, and then you just… get better. It’s supposed to be like fixing a car. Replace the spark plugs, change the oil, and you’re back on the highway at 69 miles per hour. But the human heart is not a combustion engine. Healing is more like trying to grow a forest on a plot of land that’s been salted. You can’t just yell at the dirt to produce an oak tree.
The ‘Should Be’ Trajectory
Executive Mastery
Defeated by Rules
Jackson A., the corporate trainer who can navigate a board room of 89 executives, is currently defeated by a slice of lasagna because my brain still hasn’t unlearned the 109 rules it made up about what is ‘allowed’ to be consumed. And the most frustrating part isn’t the lasagna itself; it’s the fact that I feel like I should be ‘over’ this by now. My sister got married 29 weeks ago, and I remember thinking that by the time her first anniversary rolls around, I’ll be ‘normal.’ But what if normal is just another word for ‘hiding it better’?
“What if normal is just another word for ‘hiding it better’?”
The Corporate Mirror
I’ve spent the last 9 months trying to figure out why we are so terrified of slow healing. I think it’s because long-term recovery requires us to admit that we aren’t in control. In the corporate world, if a project is behind, you just add more resources. You hire 29 more contractors or you pull 49 all-nighters. In recovery, pulling an all-nighter is usually the problem, not the solution. You cannot force neural pathways to rewire themselves any faster than they are biologically capable of doing. Scientists suggest it can take 199 days just to form a stable new habit, and yet we expect people to heal from decades of trauma in a single 29-day stint in a facility. It’s an absurd expectation. When I was at Eating Disorder Solutions, I began to understand that the long-view is the only view that matters. If you try to sprint through a marathon, you just collapse at mile 9. You have to learn to walk at a pace that feels insulting to your ego.
The J-Curve of Productivity (Self-Description)
Numbness
Initial State
The Dip (Work Happening)
Plummet
Slow Climb
Pace Management
New State
Optimized
Society wants you to skip the second bar.
I was in the dip of the J-curve. And society hates the dip. They want you to skip the bottom of the curve and jump straight to the part where you’re inspiring and have a 499-word Instagram caption about your ‘journey.’
The Vague Goal
I recently looked at an old journal from 2019. In it, I had written a list of 9 goals I wanted to achieve by the end of that year. Number 9 was ‘be happy.’ It’s such a vague, aggressive goal. It’s like telling a plant to ‘be green’ without giving it any water or light. We treat happiness and recovery like destinations on a GPS. If we aren’t there in 29 minutes, we assume we took a wrong turn. But sometimes the ‘wrong turn’ is actually the scenic route that avoids a bridge collapse.
Rejecting ‘Back to Normal’
There is a specific kind of violence in the phrase ‘back to normal.’ It implies that the version of you that broke was the correct one. But why would I want to go back to the version of myself that was so miserable it developed a disorder just to cope? That Jackson A. was a high-functioning disaster. He could manage a budget of $999,999 but couldn’t manage to eat a sandwich without a panic attack. I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward, but forward is uncharted territory.
I’ve spent 49 days lately just trying to be ‘present’ instead of ‘better.’ It’s a subtle shift, but it’s the difference between fighting the tide and learning how to float. My meditation attempts are still a mess. Yesterday, I managed to go 199 seconds before thinking about my email inbox. It’s not much, but it’s better than the 59 seconds I managed last week.
People ask if I’m better because they want to know if they can stop worrying about me. They want to stop walking on eggshells. I get it. It’s exhausting to love someone who is in the dip. But the impatience of others is a tax you have to refuse to pay.
Navigating the Uncharted
I think about the 59 therapists I’ve seen over the years-okay, it was actually 9, but it felt like 59. Each one tried to give me a different tool. Some worked for 19 days, others for 9 minutes. The one thing none of them told me-until I found the right place-was that I was allowed to be a work in progress indefinitely. There is no expiration date on healing. You don’t hit 49 years old and suddenly get a certificate that says you are now fully processed and ready for distribution. You just keep navigating. You keep showing up to the dinner table and trying to be honest even when it’s uncomfortable.
She blinks. It’s not the answer she wanted. It’s not the closure she was looking for. But it’s the truth. And in the 89 seconds of awkward silence that follow, I realize that the silence doesn’t bother me as much as it used to. I’m not checking the clock. I’m just there, sitting in the dip, waiting for the next 9 minutes of my life to happen exactly as they are going to happen.