Flip to the last page and you’ll know how it ends, but you won’t know why it matters.

Knowing the outcome and understanding it are two different kinds of knowing. The ending only carries weight because of everything that had to happen first, and if you skip the middle you get a fact where a feeling should be. Most of what makes anything matter is accumulated, not delivered at the end.

Resist the urge to jump ahead this week, in a book or anywhere else. Sit through the slow middle of the thing you are doing. The payoff is not stored on the final page, it is stored in you.