On Learning to Half-Ass Things…and Accepting It

Jen Xu
4 min readJan 3, 2024

It sounds counter-intuitive to half-ass things. But for someone who is hard-headed, intense, and stupidly aggressive at times, sometimes you have to learn to half-ass things / learn to accept it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean that we shouldn’t give 100%…or 110%, for those of us who are slightly insane. I mean that we should give the same effort at 100%, just for less time, and that it’s okay to do that. To whole-ass means to give 100% in time and effort, in the way that others around you are doing so. It’s hard to explain. I’ll put it this way — with comedy, my friends are showing up to every single open mic, they are writing a LOT, they are putting in the work. Unfortunately with my schedule and being in PhD school becoming harder…I’ve had to step back recently. I’ve missed some mics, I don’t write a lot, and therefore, I haven’t been asked to do shows in a very long time. And that’s just how it is, and I have to be ok with it. But I’m doing my best.

It’s the same with water polo. I spent my first year going to a lot of practices, 2–3x a week. But — I didn’t have a dog at the time, school was a lot easier, and I also wasn’t terrified of having another concussion…compared to now. Now, I coach once a week, which does involve me going somewhat early to swim and workout myself, but I’ve had to limit my time here. I would love to go to practice more than that. But I can’t, because of needing to rest my body (I’m not as young as I used to be, ya know?). Granted, I now know that my love for the game has…

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Jen Xu
Jen Xu

Written by Jen Xu

Athletic trainer, PhD student, coffee lover. I write about fitness, mental health, being Asian-American, and personal growth.