Some seasons are for sacrifice. It won’t always be this tight. Just don’t waste the season.

A hard stretch is easier to carry when you know it is a stretch and not the permanent shape of your life. Tight now does not mean tight forever, though nobody can hand you a date. What decides whether a lean season was worth it is whether anything got built inside it.

Ask what this particular period is for. Saving, learning something, finishing a program, holding a family together. Naming it turns waiting into work, and the days feel different once they are pointed somewhere.