The Word "Enough" in My Head Weighs More Than I Thought

There are nights when I think one word would end it. Enough. Light as putting down a stone. The paradox is that the closer I get to that word, the more awake I become.

The more tired I am, the more awake I have to be to answer one question: am I running away, or am I actually deciding?

Those nights alone in front of the screen, close to three in the morning, looking at a cold-blooded set of numbers: money going out every month, how many months of runway are left, the list of things that are not working, the red figures in the report. Every line a small knife. The blue light of the screen washing over a silent room.

Outside there were partners pushing on the timeline, customers wanting the product, people on the team wanting direction. All I had to say was that we stop here, and on paper everything would add up: a hard market, tight capital, changed conditions. Everyone would understand.

Only one person would not give me that right: me, the version who told everyone on the first day that we were in this for the long road. I am not a hero. I just hate betraying what I said.

The paradox of the person at the front

There were moments when letting go was the most rational choice if you only ran the financial model. Cut the loss. Recover what you can. Close the books. Rest. If I had only been an individual, I would probably have chosen that.

But the paradox of standing at the front is this: I was no longer purely an individual. Every time I said enough, it was enough for dozens of families. It was an engineer's child with school fees half paid. It was an operations person's home loan. It was the last piece of trust a customer had put in my system instead of someone else's.

I had the right to be wrong. I did not allow myself to be casual with that word. The price of a decision does not sit only on a profit and loss statement.

From outside, a leader always looks like someone steering a large ship: one sentence and a hundred people turn. Inside it is different.

Inside, most of the time I was a man on road duty in the rain at night, holding a torch with a dying battery, standing at a junction with no signs. Darkness in front. Behind me, a group of people who believed I knew the way. They talk and laugh, they argue, they send email, they propose. There is a lot of noise. There is only one direction.

And between those two things, there were nights I wanted to throw the torch on the ground, turn around and walk into my own darkness. No voices, no questions, nobody left to answer.