Winning

Winning

(Warning: Long blog post ahead)

I just read something spectacular. Bear with me to the end.

The last few weeks for me have been WOWZA, a fantastic chain of events. I wish I could relish them for more than a few minutes.

In the movie “Bull Durham,” the character Nuke has a great pitching inning, and heads into the dugout to accept accolades. Crash Davis, however, reminds him about the transitory nature of victory:

NUKE
I was great, eh?

                                 CRASH
                     Your fastball was up and your 
                     curveball was hanging -- in the Show 
                     they woulda ripped you.

                                 NUKE
                     Can't you let me enjoy the moment?

                                 CRASH
                     The moment's over.

It was a great week for me, to be sure. But the moment’s over. Time for a new moment.

A normal person would toast her accomplishments with friends over drinks. Post it on social media with a thumbs-up. Announce it on LinkedIn. Brag to family and friends. Celebrate with a shopping spree, or a spa day.

I’m simply plotting my next move.

It amuses me that people think this blog is revealing. It’s not. No one, and I repeat NO ONE, knows all of my moves, not even my sons. I reveal, in the amount of time that I deem appropriate, what I believe it’s beneficial to reveal. No more, no less.

I like to think of the human life as an iceberg, with eighty-percent of its mass below the surface. And it is below that surface where people really live. And it is below that surface, where it’s cold and dark and very often lonely, where all of my hard work takes place. I’m alone under there, free from distractions to accomplish my goals.

I’m never satisfied. Never. My mantra? “No one cares. Work harder.”

There’s no bragging here. Bragging about one’s inner drive and ambition would be like saying a race car driver is bragging for driving 250 miles an hour. Or that a great white shark is bragging for attacking a steel cage. Or that Aaron Ralston was bragging when he cut his own arm off to survive. Or that a POW is bragging for managing to survive in a POW camp for twelve years.

The point is simply speed. Hunger. Aggression. The insatiable desire for survival. That race car driver is alone in that car. The shark, alone. Aaron Ralston, alone, a POW, alone. Alone, alone, alone, all doing what they need for survival.

It never ends, the search for winning. I achieve a degree, and I’m immediately looking for another program. I get published, and I’m pitching the next article. I finish a speaking gig, and I’m immediately back in my office, working on another. I get “the job,” and I want the promotion. I get interviewed, but I feel it’s not big enough. I have this small website, but I want it more sophisticated, more polished, with better sponsors, better affiliates, better advertisers. I don’t just want it better.

I want it the best. And it will be the best.

I have always been like this. I can compare it to eating a huge meal and leaning back satisfied, but ten minutes later the fullness wears off and I’m scrounging around for more food. Always voracious, never content.

I just read something that finally explains me to me. The words were like an anvil between my eyes. Like I’ve been living in a foreign country and I have finally met someone who knows how to order off the menu. Enjoy this selection about the hunger, the struggle, and the utterly defeating and exhausting search for that bitch called Winning.

Winning throws a party in your honor, refuses to give you the place and time, and sticks you with the check. It pours your champagne, and knocks over the glass.

Winning puts you on the biggest stage. And shuts off all the lights.

Winning drives you forward. Every time you advance, you can hear the steel bars clank shut behind you; they are real, and they are earned. Now you can’t go back, only ahead. You can’t unlearn what you’ve learned. You can’t unfeel what you’ve felt.

Winning never lies, but it always hides the truth. It tells you everything you want is so close, and then laughs as it slams the door in your face. It tells you all your goals and dreams are impossible, and then taunts you to keep going. One more step. One more step. One more step, to an uncertain destination that might not even be there.

Winning is craziness. It doesn’t sleep, and doesn’t understand why you do.

It refuses to share time or space with others in your life, like a jealous lover who demands all of you and gets it. It’s a driving obsession that looks irrational to others and perfect to you.

Winning is unforgiving. If you screw up, if you lay down, if you show weakness, you’re done. It shows you the best of you, and the worst.

Winning keeps its hands in its pockets, so it doesn’t accidentally point to someone unworthy. It holds you up to the sun. And watches you burn.

If you manage to reach the top, Winning will be there to greet you with open arms. Just before it pushes you off the ledge to make room for someone else.

It’s your ultimate reality check, a scorching reminder of who you really are and who you’re pretending to be, and forcing you to reconcile the difference. Winning is the lover who takes you to paradise all night long, and disappears before morning. It’s the dream you can’t remember when you wake up.

Winning is unapologetic. You can be replaced. You will be replaced.

One minute you see a step in front of you, the next moment it’s quicksand.

Winning doesn’t care if you can walk up the steps- it wants to know what happens when you miss that step, when you can’t see or feel what’s in front of you.

Some days you’ll feel so good you’ll want to sprint, other days you’re crawling on your hands and knees, gasping for breath and wishing you’d never started this race.

Winning requires real talk. Or, even better, no talk at all.

Winning is that incredible riptide of artificial power and passion and ravenous energy…right before it wears off and you’re suddenly face-planted on the hard cold floor wondering what the hell happened.

And when you finally make some progress…more steps to climb. There’s a pebble in your shoe, a blister on every toe. Your lungs want to explode. Every day.

EVERY DAMN DAY.

It’s the road to paradise, and it starts in hell.

Welcome to Winning.

-Tim Grover