The Skip in the Record
There are days when nothing moves. You work and sweat and push, and nothing changes. You try harder, and it only gets worse. You feel like a man stuck in mud—fighting it only pulls you deeper.
When that happens, most men grow bitter. They curse. They lash out. They fight the world like it owes them something.
But I learned a trick.
I used to work as a handyman. The kind of work where your hands are never clean and your back never stops aching. Some days went well. Others didn’t. Some days, everything I touched went sideways—tools broke, people complained, work orders piled up like bricks on my chest.
When that happened, I did something strange.
I’d stop. Right in the middle of it. I’d hold up my hands and say out loud, “Well, I guess it’s just going to be this way today.” Then I’d slow down. Breathe. Not try to outrun the storm.
I called it putting a skip in the record.
You know the sound—when a record skips and repeats the same line over here and over. Most folks try to fix it right away. Me I’d let it play. That skip was telling me something.
One day, my crew was dragging. Nothing was going right. I called them together. Told them about the hands-up trick. They looked at me like I’d lost it. I told click here them, “You’re pushing too hard. You’re not seeing straight. When things go wrong, don’t fight harder. Stop. Take a read more step back. Let the record skip.”
They tried it. And it worked.
Because when you click here stop, you can see the problem. You can see yourself. You realize you're rushing. Missing things. Letting frustration lead.
That’s check here how days turn around—not with force, but with space.
I still do it now. Still hold up my hands when life grinds. Not to surrender. But to slow down. To see better. To let the dust settle so I know which way the wind’s really blowing.
It’s a small thing. But small things matter when you’re trying to survive the long days.