Hard vs. Easy

I'm learning something new again:  sock knitting.

I don't think I ever appreciated the structure of a sock until I tried to create one!

I've got a book of instructions.  I've got all the necessary supplies:  needles, yarn, row markers.

What I don't have is experience.

I do have a little bit of knowledge to build on.  I have some basic skills.

And until I attempt this, I will never achieve it.

Yes, I'll face disappointment.  (actually, already have - I ripped out the entire 6 inches of my first attempt and started over.)

But from those setbacks, I'll learn valuable lessons. (ex:  I learned that dividing 44 into 3 equal sections works better as 14+16+14 rather than 14+15+15)

I learned that if you fix something early, you won't have to live with an error forever and you won't waste your resources. 

The message in my fortune cookie last night sums it up:  Everything is hard before it's easy.

If nothing was ever hard, we wouldn't know what easy was. And we probably never learn anything new.