Ambition burns fast.
Endurance waits.
The city woke into something unfamiliar—not excitement, not tension, but a steady, almost uncomfortable calm. The kind that settles after grand plans are abandoned and only what can actually last is allowed to remain.
Nothing was reaching anymore.
Everything was holding.
✦
Arjun noticed it as we walked the lower route where initiatives used to overlap.
"They're not stacking goals," he said."One thing at a time."
"Yes," I replied."That's endurance."
✦
The other Ishaan aligned, voice calm and exact.
Ambition seeks expansion, he said.Endurance seeks survival.
✦
By midmorning, the difference was unmistakable.
Requests were fewer.Plans were narrower.Timelines were longer.
But they stuck.
✦
A task assigned in the morning was still the same task by noon—no added scope, no surprise dependencies. People finished it without improvisation.
The work felt… clean.
✦
Arjun exhaled slowly."This is easier to breathe in."
