You can’t tell by looking at them, but my websites have never been in better shape. Three of my favorite creations: Find Funding Magazine , Project Japale Goune, and this blog recently got a major upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. I made the decision to hire someone who is much more knowledgeable than I and could do the work in 500% fewer hours than I. (Business school thinking, right there!) And just like that, the dashboards of my sites are easier, more intuitive, and more functional than ever before.

And yet, you, for whom the websites are built, can’t tell a damn thing. It’s behind the scenes progress.

As with the rest of my life these days, I am hoping that I am making similar progress, perhaps so well hidden that not even I am aware of it.  Otherwise, I might lose hope.  I have pieced together a hodgepodge of internships this summer that look, on paper, nothing like the linear path I anticipated I would take.  Instead of experiencing the  steep learning curve and anxiety of starting a single new job, I’ve taken on three.  I am also on the D.L. from racquetball with a bruised (or cracked) rib, which has me feeling either in tremendous pain or lethargic from narcotic painkillers.  Not to mention a bit doughy from the lack of exercise.

Yet, I try to believe that  I’ll look back on this time as I have on so many other difficult times: with the gift of hindsight.   I will understand that the seemingly scattered dots do eventually connect, that the times I felt I was treading water were actually propelling me forward, that some progress isn’t always observable.   I am grateful for the reminder of how important it is to believe this (and the prescription painkillers.)

Steve Jobs gets at that same idea in this short video – you can’t map your journey until you have arrived.