Member-only story
Your First Year (Doing Anything) Is The Hardest
My first year of high school sucked.
I didn’t have a group of friends. I sat by myself every day at the one lunch tables nobody else sat at. And I didn’t talk to anyone during or between classes, spending every Friday alone in my bedroom eating takeout Chinese food and playing World of Warcraft.
My first year playing hockey as a kid also sucked.
I had a hard time learning how to skate. I kept falling on my face, and asked my dad repeatedly if I could quit (he said no, and I went on to play hockey for almost 15 years).
My first year playing classical piano sucked — my left hand and right hand couldn’t get along. My first year of college sucked — I had a very toxic relationship with my parents and all I did was smoke weed. My first year of being in the working world sucked — my girlfriend and I had just broken up, I was making minimum wage, and my apartment didn’t have heat or AC and my bed was a $100 air mattress from Target.
Your first year doing anything is the hardest.
I can’t think of a single chapter of my life where the first year, the first quarter, the first few months, the first step wasn’t difficult. Even when I started my first company at 26 years old, our first few months were tough. My…