The 100-Meter Dash in My Brain When Asking a 'Younger Senior' a Question

In my previous article, I wrote about the frustration of having to bow my head to someone younger in a new department. Thankfully, I received many responses, and I feel as though I've found comrades, thinking, 'Everyone keeps a poker face on the outside, but deep down, they are swallowing all sorts of things and fighting.'

Well, what I face every day is the mission of 'going to ask a younger senior a question.'

Staring at the manual at my desk or while working from home, I hit an operation I just can't figure out. From the moment I decide, 'Okay, I'll ask,' until I actually stand up or type a chat message, an incredible distance of a run-up begins in my brain.

'Are they busy right now?'

'Did they explain something similar before...?'

'If I talk to them now, will they think, "Not again"?'

The negative simulation in my brain races at the speed of a 100-meter dash. Where on earth did that courage I once had, when I jumped into the hearts of numerous impregnable clients on the front lines of sales, log out to?

Objectively speaking, it is just a 50-year-old man standing up and walking a few steps, or hitting the keyboard to say, 'Excuse me, I don't understand this part,' an event that takes only three seconds.

However, inside me, there is a tension like that of an astronaut attempting to dock with the International Space Station.

I steel myself, stand up, and call out to my senior in their 30s.

'Excuse me, it's about this part...'

'Oh, Otsute-san, that part is like this!'

The senior teaches me surprisingly normally and easily. They are so kind that it's anticlimactic. My brain's 100-meter dash was completely a one-man sumo match.

While taking notes on the procedure I was taught, I let out a small sigh. This in itself is quite tiring.

But today, too, I managed to move forward, tucking my tiny ego under my arm.

Practicing letting go of my pride is still a little bad for my heart every time. But it is also a fact that every time I overcome that three-second tension, my 'survival skills' are updated little by little.