if you see a challenge approaching, don’t run away. you walk towards him.

An unopened envelope on the counter grows. Everyone knows this and everyone leaves it there anyway, and by Thursday it is no longer a bill, it is a presence in the kitchen.

Opened, it is a number. Frequently a worse number than you hoped for, and still a finite one, which is a completely different category of thing from a dread with no edges.

Walking towards something does not make it smaller. It makes it specific, and specific is what a person can actually work with.