An Imperfect Record
The Field Review: TFR-089
THE LEDE
A Weekly Column On Living Well
Most people I know who are searching for a more a fulfilling life are only willing to pursue it as long as they never have to look stupid in the process.
They want certainty before commitment. Assurance on reward for risk. A guarantee that if they take a chance, something worthwhile will come back in return.
Unfortunately, it rarely works out that way.
Most things worth doing come with the very real possibility that you will waste your time, miss your shot, embarrass yourself, or find out you were not nearly as suited for the task as you had hoped.
For a long time, I thought living well meant making good choices and avoiding unnecessary losses. What I’ve come to realize is maintaining a perfect record is not usually a sign of a life well lived. It just shows you successfully insulated yourself from taking any losses.
Basketball was the first place I learned that effort and outcome aren’t always tied together. I started playing in sixth grade. I was tall, lanky and could jump, which meant I kept making the team every year. I went to the camps. I played in the summer leagues. I did what you’re supposed to do when you want to get better, and yet, with each passing year I found myself sitting farther and farther down the bench.
At the end of my junior year season, I asked the varsity coach a blunt question in his little locker room office.
“If I work my ass off this summer, is there any chance I can work back into the starting rotation as a senior?”
He didn’t hesitate or mince words.
“No.”
I didn’t recognize it then, but now years later I really respect the straightforwardness in that answer. No false hope. No motivational speech. Just reality.
At the time, it felt like a door was closing. While it wasn’t my entire identity, for many years I identified as a basketball player. I was on the team, I was literally in the arena. But that one word simple answer provided some outside clarity that I probably needed.
I wasn’t going to become the player I wanted to be. That part of my life was officially over as I never played organized basketball again after that conversation. For the first time in my young adult life, I discovered that trying hard does not guarantee the outcome you want or feel you deserve. Sometimes you can do everything “right” and still come up short. Sometimes the thing you want doesn’t want you back. In my case, I was spending time in the wrong arena.
Once you understand this fundamental fact of life, you can stop treating your failures like verdicts and start treating them for what they really are, information.
Just because you may have missed a shot doesn’t mean you were wrong to take it. You learn that dead ends aren’t wasted time, and that bad outcomes and bad decisions are not always the same thing.
I’ve tried a lot of things. Side hustles, main hustles, ones with an accompanying W2 and plenty of 1099s, too. Some have worked out. Plenty have fizzled and died. Some taught me very quickly what I don’t actually enjoy once pressure, money, or expectation get involved. Some were only good for a short season of life.
I don’t feel like any of the time or effort I spent pursuing them was wasted.
Every swing gave me something back, even when it didn’t give me what I originally wanted. A little skill. A little perspective. A little proof that I will in fact survive even after looking dumb, being dead wrong, or having to completely start over.
Two years ago, I started The Field Review with zero imported subscribers and no real plan beyond wanting to write something for myself every week. I had no clue what I was doing. Most weeks, I still don’t.
A lot of these issues are entirely forgettable. Some of them miss the mark entirely, failing to illustrate a big idea I can’t seem to put into words. But the goal in starting a newsletter was never to build a perfect record. I don’t have a perfect record to write about. The point of starting this was to test my commitment to building something new. To challenge my mental stamina and keep showing up to find out whether this was something worth giving more of my time to.
I feel like I’ve just recently found solid footing in the last few months. Building more around this core thesis of “living well” I just happened to stumble into. I’ve been slowly building, tearing down, and reinforcing a set of mental guidelines to improve my life one newsletter at a time.
When I talk to people about this idea, they often think living well means getting everything right. Making smart choices. Getting a return on investment. Avoiding embarrassment. Keeping your record clean.
I am living proof that it doesn’t automatically mean any of those things. Living well requires a strong tolerance for imperfection. It asks you to enter arenas where you know you might not win, might not be chosen, might not be especially good, and might have to leave with less than you hoped for.
To truly live well means to recognize the potential for failure in advance, to suit up and enter the arena anyway.
If you look closely, those with the cleanest records are often the ones who risked the least. They stayed close to shore or in the stands, only reaching for what they knew was easily winnable. They protected themselves from any sting of ever being wrong or ever taking a loss.
This approach breeds pride and accomplishment, but it doesn’t teach you very much about anything.
A life well lived is rarely spotless. It has plenty losses in it. False starts. Misreads. Seasons where you gave a lot and got very little back. But as long as you were paying attention, none of it was for nothing.
At the end of road, a perfect record is nothing more than a representation of a small life. And a small life is a life never really lived.
Live Well. Tell No One.
THE MARGIN
A Few Things That Grabbed My Attention This Week
This Week Was a Blur
Wake up, kid care, work, kid care, sleep. That’s what happened, five days in a row. In lieu of attention grabbers, here are a few shots from the week.
P.S. - I’m proud of my Substack subscription list right now, but where else are you getting good inspiration and ideas these days? (Substack or otherwise)
STANDARDS
Concepts & Vibes For Your Consideration
The Field Review is a weekly newsletter exploring the art of living well.
Every Sunday at 10AM EST, I share ideas, insights, and conversations that help break through the noise, offering a real look at how we can all keep moving forward.
Venture Onward,
Jack
Would love to hear more from you, the reader. What’s on your mind, where you’re headed, what you want to see next from me, the writer. Drop a comment below.
I feel like I found a Substack that I need with this essay. Thanks!