02/15/2026
Short story analogy.
I've played pool for about 35 years. It's been an important game to me as it requires skill, precision, strategy, focus, and control. Attributes that I try to apply to life, to my roles as a father, a once husband, a therapist, and a human soul. To me, in the game, I am always competing against myself, not the opponent (which has mostly been my father for those 35 years). In the past month or so, I've had a very interesting journey in my playing, which is actually analogous to my life and self growth.
I started watching videos on advanced techniques in side spin on the cue ball and more control of cue ball placement after a shot and lining up the next shots. I started to approach the game a little differently and my skill dipped down for a little bit as I had to adjust and approach things differently. Then I advanced more quickly than I had in 35 years. I leveled up and began to more consistently run the table almost each time with one turn. I then upgraded my cue tip and dipped back down for a moment and then improved again. I was playing very well for about a month, then I crashed. For the past 3 weeks it went away completely. I was inconsistent, missing shots that I should easily make and had regressed significantly. I couldn't figure out why. It has been beyond frustrating, defeating, and unraveling.
Then, I realized that my nervous system crashed because it was so intense and that I need to reset. I'm in the active phase of resetting right now. With that said, I decided that I didn't lose skill all of the sudden. I was performing at such a high level and I was getting use to that and felt the internal pressure (and confidence) that I could run tables and almost not miss any shot. When I started to miss, I would say "that's unacceptable", "I shouldn't have missed that", etc. I was/am very hard on myself and things declined very quickly.
And, just like in my life in the past few years and more recently, there was joy, love, peace, connection, then loss and devastation. Then a little bit of respite from all of that heavy weight; a period of coming back online again, alive, seeing in color, tasting, and smelling life. Then, complete devastation again as it went away in such an abrupt and blindsided way. The experience of this loss was extra traumatic because it came after a lot of darkness and sadness and was so positively impactful. It hit hard. And, there are two ways to look at it. One, through the lens of shock and trauma and frustration; i.e. just when you finally have something nice or feel relief or joy, bam, it gets taken away. And two, through the lens of beauty and gratitude for the experience that helped me to come back online, for the time of feeling beautiful things, and for the positive lessons learned and the very difficult lessons learned.
Back to pool, so I realized that this intense month of advanced playing was amazing. It's not gone forever or taken away. It gave me a preview of myself, my future self, my evolving self, but it couldn't be sustained without a reset. The nervous system was running at full speed and it crashed. So, I am currently accepting that. I'm resetting my philosophy on approaching the game. I just played another 2 hour session with basic techniques. Just pocketing balls, no side spin, no cue ball placement, etc. Just simple play. The goal here was to recalibrate and to play without emotion, without expectation, without pressure. I was able to do that. My skill was "okay" during that play, but again, not the goal. I played with peace and acceptance. I will not just "get back" to where I was, I will evolve into something else, both in pool and within self. This is an exercise in grounding within and not from the external.
If you stayed with this story this long, I thank you very very much. I hope you can glean something from this. A very special and wise person once told me about investing that I should "buy in the dip". Meaning that when the value went down, invest more in it because it's going to skyrocket one day. I agreed with her then regarding investments, and I believe that it's important to do symbolically and spiritually, and holistically as well.
When I dip down in functioning, in emotion, in feeling defeat and frustration, I am learning to lean into that as an opportunity for growth and an opportunity for investment.
So, the question I pose to you, How will you buy in the dip?
