I was sitting in my kitchen the other day, staring at a loaf of bread that hadn’t risen. It was dense, heavy, and looked more like a brick than something you’d want to put butter on. I’d followed the steps—or I thought I had—but somewhere between the mixing and the waiting, I’d lost the plot. My first instinct was to go online and find a faster way, a “hack,” something to bypass the four hours of waiting next time. But then I stopped. I realized that the failure wasn’t in the bread. The failure was in my rush.
We spend so much of our lives trying to shave off minutes. We want the fastest route on the map, the quickest workout, the three-minute meal. We’ve become obsessed with the destination, totally forgetting that the journey is where the actual learning happens. It sounds like a cliché, I know. It’s the kind of thing you see on a dusty motivational poster in a high school hallway. But the more I lean into the “long way,” the more I realize that the shortcuts we take are actually robbing us of something pretty vital.
The hidden cost of the shortcut
Think about the last time you really learned a skill. I mean *really* learned it, to the point where you could do it without thinking. It probably didn’t happen in a weekend. It probably involved a lot of swearing, a few mistakes, and a lot of moments where you wanted to throw the whole project out the window. That frustration? That’s actually the sound of your brain getting better at something.
When we take the long way, we encounter problems we didn’t expect. We have to troubleshoot. We have to look at the “why” behind the “how.” If I buy a pre-made shelf and click it together in ten minutes, I have a shelf. That’s fine. But if I spend three days measuring, cutting, and sanding a piece of wood, I don’t just have a shelf. I have an understanding of grain, of tension, and of how to fix a mistake when the saw slips. The shortcut gives you the object; the long way gives you the knowledge.
It’s a trade-off we don’t talk about enough. We’re so focused on efficiency that we’ve forgotten that efficiency is often the enemy of depth. You can’t rush a good conversation, and you certainly can’t rush the development of a real, tangible talent.
The rhythm of the “slow” process
There’s a certain rhythm to doing things manually. I find this a lot when I’m gardening. You could probably hire someone to come in with heavy machinery and clear a patch of land in an hour. Or you could spend a week out there with a spade, turning the soil by hand. It’s back-breaking work, sure. But by the time you’re done, you know exactly where the rocks are. You know where the soil is dry and where it’s rich. You’ve smelled the earth.
Finding the flow state
Doing things the long way often leads to what people call “flow.” It’s that weird state where time sort of disappears and you’re just… in it. It rarely happens when you’re taking a shortcut because shortcuts usually require less of your attention. They’re designed to be mindless. But when you’re deep into a complex task—like restoration, or writing a long letter by hand, or even just cooking a complex meal—you have to be present. You have to be right there, in the moment, or the whole thing falls apart.
I think we’re all a little starved for that kind of presence. Our phones are buzzing, the TV is on, and we’re trying to do five things at once. Turning off the noise and committing to a slow, methodical process is like a reset button for the brain. It’s quiet. It’s focused. And it’s increasingly rare.
Why we’re afraid of the “hard” way
If the slow way is so great, why do we avoid it? Honestly, I think it’s because we’re afraid of looking stupid. The long way involves a lot of trial and error. It involves being a beginner for a long time. And in a world where everyone is posting their “highlight reel” of perfect results, being a messy beginner feels vulnerable.
We want to be the person who can play the guitar, but we don’t want to be the person who spends six months playing scales that sound like a dying cat. We want the garden, but we don’t want the mud under our fingernails. But you can’t have one without the other. The “hard” part isn’t just a hurdle to get over; it’s the foundation. If you skip the foundation, whatever you build is going to be pretty shaky.
- It builds grit: Sticking with a difficult task when it gets boring is a muscle you have to train.
- It creates a story: Nobody tells a great story about the time they bought something from a catalog. They tell the story of the time they tried to build it and the garage almost caught on fire.
- It anchors your memory: We remember the things we struggled for much more vividly than the things that came easily.
Learning to trust your own hands
I’ve noticed that the more I do things the “long way,” the more I trust my own judgment. When you rely on shortcuts or instructions for everything, you’re essentially outsourcing your thinking. You’re saying, “I don’t know how to do this, so I’ll just follow this specific path.” That’s fine for some things—I’m not saying you should build your own car from scratch—but when it becomes your default mode for everything, you lose that sense of self-reliance.
There’s a massive amount of confidence that comes from knowing you can figure things out. It’s the difference between knowing a “fact” and having “experience.” Experience is what stays with you when the instructions get lost or the power goes out. It’s that internal compass that says, “I’ve seen something like this before, and I can handle it.”
The joy of the imperfect
Another thing about the long way? The results are never “perfect,” and that’s actually the best part. When you do something manually, your personality seeps into it. There are little wobbles, slight asymmetries, or a unique finish that a machine or a shortcut could never replicate. These imperfections are the evidence of a human being at work. They give things soul.
I have a wooden bowl a friend made for me. It’s not perfectly round. One side is a little thicker than the other. But when I hold it, I can see where his tools moved. I can feel the effort he put into it. If he’d just bought a perfectly turned bowl from a big-box store, it would just be a bowl. This one is a conversation. It’s a piece of his time, given to me.
Practical ways to slow down (without going crazy)
I’m not suggesting we all move to a cabin in the woods and start churning our own butter. We live in the real world, and we have responsibilities. But I do think we can find small pockets of our lives where we intentionally choose the “long way” just for the sake of the process.
Maybe it’s deciding to walk to the store instead of driving, even if it takes twenty minutes longer. Maybe it’s making coffee with a manual press instead of a pod machine. Maybe it’s picking up a hobby that has no “point” other than the doing of it—like knitting, or sketching, or restoring old furniture. The goal isn’t to be more productive. The goal is to be more present.
I started doing this with my Sunday mornings. No plans, no rush. I spend an hour making a breakfast that probably takes way too much effort. I chop the vegetables by hand. I wait for the pan to get to just the right temperature. It’s inefficient as hell. But you know what? It’s usually the best meal I eat all week, not because the ingredients are better, but because I was actually there to taste them while I was cooking.
A different kind of satisfaction
At the end of the day, the feeling you get from finishing something difficult is unlike anything else. It’s a deep, quiet satisfaction that a shortcut can’t touch. It’s the feeling of looking at something and saying, “I did that. I struggled with it, I learned from it, and I finished it.”
We’re taught to value the result, but I’m starting to think the result is just the souvenir. The real prize is the person you become while you’re doing the work. You become more patient. You become more observant. You become someone who isn’t afraid of a little bit of friction.
So, the next time you find yourself looking for the quickest way out of a task, maybe ask yourself what you’re missing by skipping the middle. Maybe the long way isn’t a waste of time. Maybe it’s the best use of it. It might take longer, and it might be a bit of a mess, but I promise you, the view from the slow road is a lot more interesting.
I still haven’t mastered that bread, by the way. My last loaf was a little better, but it’s still not quite there. But that’s okay. I’ve got all the time in the world, and honestly, the flour on my hands feels pretty good.