What We Miss When We’re Winning

Back in Toronto last week, my nephew talked me into building a fire for s'mores, then changed his mind after one bite and ran off laughing. I ended up eating the s'more myself and thought: that's about right.

It was peak fall. That week when the air shifts, the trees show up in bright oranges and reds, and the sky can look like it's on fire. Now that I live in LA, a trip back feels like a proper reset. I walked with my mom through the woods for an hour, talking about nothing in particular, which is usually when the real things get said. My dad came out to watch me put the dog through agility drills and offered coaching notes for both of us.

Then there was game seven of the ALCS with my brother and friends at the Rogers Centre Skydome. The Blue Jays, our team since we were kids. They haven't been to the World Series in over thirty years.

When the ball left the bat (the Springer Dinger) and cleared the fence right in front of us, the stadium erupted. For a second it was just euphoria. We weren't men in our thirties with jobs and deadlines; we were kids again, yelling under the lights, alive in a way that's almost impossible to recreate.

Later that week, my wife had pulled together a birthday celebration: friends from so many different chapters of my life in one room. Old teammates, colleagues, classmates, people I hadn't seen in years. I still have that voice that wonders, before every birthday, what if no one comes? I think I can finally put that one to bed.

We caught up, laughed, and swapped stories that had aged better than we had. It's the kind of moment I don't take for granted.

This is the life I once wanted. I get to be in it. I’m beyond blessed.

Yet even in the middle of all that, I was still on calls. Documents, proposals, ideas, unfinished thoughts bouncing around in my head, along with a life in LA to manage from afar.

One night, I had to stay on for West Coast calls, and I could hear laughter carrying through from the next room. I caught my reflection in the dark laptop screen and wanted to close it and join the group.

I do enjoy the work, and the laptop is part of what makes that room possible, but I also want to be fully present with family.

Sometimes the pull of the work still triggers an anxiety I'm working to catch and manage when it takes away from family and friends. But I do love the work.

That moment isn't unique. That tension has been there in some form for years.

For years, I was always chasing. The next milestone, the next raise, the next degree, the next thing. I was good at telling myself it was the right way to live. Always growing, always pushing myself outside my comfort zone. What I had underneath all of it was a restlessness I didn't fully recognize. I wasn't good at just being in something.

I'm a lot better at it now. That comes from a lot of reflection and, I suppose, just maturing. But I still catch myself. Phone going off when I want to be present, running through tomorrow's agenda during the conversation that's actually happening, physically there but somewhere else entirely.

I've stopped expecting the tension to go away. What I try to do is make a cleaner choice when I notice it. If work is pulling at me while I'm with family, I either step away and actually deal with it or I put it down and stay. The half-presence where you're in the room but not really there. That's the version of the evening I won't remember.

Chances are, you know what that feeling is like.

Seneca wrote about this for Roman senators who kept saying they'd slow down after the next campaign, the next appointment, the next thing. While we wait for life, life passes.

We spend years chasing freedom: whether that means free time, financial control, or success. But when we're always chasing, we're living somewhere in the future, anxious about what's next, mentally elsewhere.

The noise probably never fully quiets. I'm just working to get better at not letting it pull me out of the good stuff.

If anything here landed for you, hit reply. I read everything.

Until next Sunday,
Eric

P.S. There's probably a moment worth making this week. Be intentional and go make it.