Winning the Wrong Game

I’ve had several conversations recently
that were a reminder that
what I notice,
doesn’t tell me something
about what I’m looking at.
It tells me something
about me.
The frame doesn’t explain the picture.
It reveals the framer.
What I’ve been hearing feels familiar.
Different people.
Different details.
Same arc.
Work hard.
Sacrifice.
Achieve.
Arrive.
Then, somewhere near the top,
realize how incomplete it feels.
Despite the success.
The comfort.
The proof
The view.
They are all real.
They feel great.
They don’t feel complete.
That’s what makes it disorienting.
Disappointing.
Getting there and feeling how little “there” there is.
I can relate.
More than 30 years ago,
I found my own version of that mountaintop.
I had enough success to believe I had found the answer.
It worked for a while.
That’s the hard part about wins.
They do bring something.
Comfort.
Relief.
Validation.
Eventually, my comfort becomes familiar.
When my comfort becomes familiar,
it stops feeling like fulfillment.
That is my experience.
Winning can still leave me longing.
Worse, it can leave me empty
when I’ve given myself to the wrong game.
At the bottom, I could convince myself the top would be better.
Different.
At the top, it was worse.
No illusion of better.
It turned out winning the wrong game
was still a loss for me.