The "Shining" Space Between Finishing and Beginning

By Michael Beck & Inckey

There's a moment in life that feels like standing in a hallway where all the doors are closed, the lights flicker slightly, and someone behind you keeps asking, with unwavering optimism, “So what’s next?”

You don't know. You are fairly sure no one knows. But everyone is pretending this is not deeply unsettling.

Something ends. A project. A season. A long and emotionally involved relationship with a responsibility that started small and later demanded tribute.

And before the next thing begins, there is a pause.

This pause is not listed in any productivity system. It doesn't show up on calendars. It can't be color coded. Which immediately makes people suspicious.

We assume it's a mistake.

Surely the correct response is to say something decisive. Preferably with verbs. Possibly involving a roadmap. At minimum, a confident nod.

So we start announcing plans. We open new documents. We reorganize things that were perfectly fine until five minutes ago.

We say phrases like “next year is about focus” while actively opening fourteen tabs and forgetting why.

And when the discomfort really kicks in, we reach for modern reassurance.

We ask ChatGPT to write us a plan. A big one. Sometimes a hundred pages long. It comes back instantly. Structured. Polished. Confident. It looks phenomenal. It sounds like clarity.

And then, if you sit with it long enough, you realize something unsettling.

It's a little bit like Jack Torrance’s manuscript in The Shining.

Page after page of perfectly typed effort. Neat margins. Impeccable consistency. And beneath all that industry, the same sentence repeating itself.

The problem was never the typing. The problem was mistaking repetition for meaning.

That is the risk with plans generated faster than reflection can keep up. They deliver information, not wisdom. Confidence, not context. Output without the lived experience that gives it weight.

The plan doesn't know what drained you. It doesn't know which meeting hollowed you out or which win felt strangely empty. It doesn't know what part of yourself you had to silence to keep things moving.

No matter how elegant the language, it can't replace the truth hiding in the pause you are trying to escape.

This time of year is essentially a global buffering state. Everyone is “wrapping things up” while mentally wandering into the woods. Calendars are full. Attention has left the building. Ambition is still present, but it's wearing sweatpants and asking if anyone has seen the remote.

Beginnings get applause because they promise reinvention. Endings get tolerance because at least they stop. The space in between gets ignored like the instructions you only read after everything is already broken.

Which is unfortunate, because that is where reality lives.

A few years ago, after finishing something that had consumed months of effort, I did what any rational adult would do. I sat on the floor with my laptop open, stared at my calendar, and waited for a sense of triumph.

Nothing happened.

No pride. No relief. No swelling music. Just the sudden awareness that my shoulders hurt and I had been clenching my jaw since approximately the Bronze Age.

I remember thinking, That’s odd. This was supposed to feel better.

That thought lasted about ninety seconds before my brain tried to fix the situation by generating plans. New ideas. New momentum. Anything to avoid the silence quietly unpacking boxes labeled “truth.”

But for once, I did not interrupt it.

And in that quiet, a strange inventory appeared.

I noticed which parts of the work energized me and which parts I had merely survived while calling them “necessary.” I noticed how often I confused being needed with being effective. I noticed that the thing I was proud of was not the result, but the version of myself that showed up when things got tight and no one had answers.

None of this arrived with fireworks. Just mild clarity and the realization that my posture had been a personal attack on my spine.

That is the space between finishing and beginning.

It's not empty. It's not idle. It's where reality stops being polite.

It says things like Yes, that worked, but it aged you like a banana left in the sun. Yes, you succeeded, but you would fake a minor illness before doing it again. Yes, you handled it, but “handled it” is doing a heroic amount of emotional labor in that sentence.

This is not criticism. It's information of a different kind. The kind you can't outsource. The kind you earn by staying still long enough to notice patterns repeating.

We like to believe clarity comes from action. Action creates data. Stillness interprets it. Skip the stillness and you end up typing the same sentence over and over, just formatted differently.

This is how people become very accomplished and slightly haunted.

The space between finishing and beginning runs diagnostics without asking permission. It checks which systems worked because they were solid and which ones were held together by caffeine, adrenaline, and the deeply optimistic belief that future you would deal with it.

Future you has arrived. Future you is tired. Future you does not want another plan.

This space asks questions that do not respect productivity software.

What did you keep doing because stopping felt harder than continuing? What did you label ambition that was actually fear wearing business casual? What part of you showed up consistently while you were busy crediting circumstances, luck, and perhaps the moon?

These questions are not urgent. They are patient. Which is frankly rude.

We love beginnings because they let us imagine a future version of ourselves who drinks water, answers emails calmly, and has never once said “we should circle back.”

We accept endings because they let us say onward and avoid emotional inventory.

But the space in between is where you realize some things are complete even if no one noticed. Some goals quietly retire. Some habits reveal themselves as elaborate misunderstandings that went on far too long.

This is not failure. This is editing.

There is a strange relief here if you stop fidgeting long enough to notice it.

The relief of not immediately becoming someone new. The relief of not having to brand your growth. The relief of letting your nervous system catch up to your calendar, which has been sprinting ahead without supervision.

Beginnings are coming. They always do. Loud. Confident. Armed with fresh plans and wildly unrealistic assumptions about your energy levels.

Before they arrive like an overly enthusiastic intern holding a clipboard and hope, stay here for a moment.

Listen to what the ending is still saying. Notice what feels resolved and what feels suspiciously unfinished. Pay attention to the truths that only appear when no one is asking you for a strategy.

The universe has a sense of humor and no respect for your schedule. It will keep delivering the same lesson in increasingly creative disguises until you stop speed walking past it.

The space between finishing and beginning is not wasted time. It's not a delay. It's not broken.

It is a conversation.

Stay long enough and it tells you what to carry forward and what to finally put down.

It will not motivate you. It will not flatter you. It will not care about your plans.

It will simply tell the truth.

Which is inconvenient. Which is oddly comforting. Which is, against all odds, enough.

So let me ask you this. What are you still doing out of habit that you would absolutely not start today?

And there is one last image worth sitting with.

At the end of The Shining, Jack is not defeated because he lacked a plan. He is defeated because he clung to one. He chased certainty through a maze, convinced that forward motion alone would save him. Every turn looked intentional. Every step felt necessary. Until suddenly, he was no longer moving forward at all.

Frozen. Not because he stopped thinking. But because he could not stop deciding.

That is the quiet risk of skipping the space between finishing and beginning.

We grip the plan like it will keep us warm. We follow the map because standing still feels irresponsible. We mistake motion for progress, repetition for resolve, output for understanding.

And without noticing, the maze closes in.

The pause was never the threat. The cold comes from refusing it.

The way out is rarely another page, another framework, another perfectly typed certainty. It's the moment you stop running long enough to realize you were never lost. You were just avoiding the silence that would have told you which direction mattered.

The space between finishing and beginning doesn't trap you. It frees you.

But only if you are willing to stand there.