#12: Play It Like You Chose It

I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit wishing parts of my story had gone differently.

There have been seasons when I looked at someone else’s career, family, opportunities or path and thought, “Man, that looks easier.” Not necessarily easy. Just easier than mine. Fewer detours. Fewer closed doors. Fewer moments that required starting over or figuring out a completely different plan than the one I had in my head.

I’ve wondered what my life would look like if certain people had believed in me earlier. If certain opportunities had worked out. If a few relationships had ended differently. If I had made better decisions in a few important moments. I’ve replayed conversations, questioned timing and spent plenty of energy wondering why somebody else seemed to get the opportunity I thought I was ready for.

Basically, I’ve spent a decent portion of my life looking around the table wondering who shuffled these cards and whether I could speak to a manager.

There have been times when it felt like everyone else got pocket aces and I was sitting there trying to figure out what exactly I was supposed to do with a four of diamonds, a seven of spades, a Blockbuster membership card and a coupon that expired in 2016.

Not exactly the hand I would’ve picked.

But the older I get, the more I’m beginning to believe one of the keys to a good life is learning to play the hand you were dealt like it’s the hand you actually wanted.

For a long time, I didn’t just want different cards. I wanted an explanation for the ones I had. Why this? Why now? Why me? I think that’s one of the hardest parts of disappointment. We don’t just want our circumstances to be different. We want them to make sense. We want somebody to hand us the director’s commentary for our life and explain why that scene had to happen.

Unfortunately, life rarely does that. Sometimes the door closes and nobody explains why. Sometimes somebody leaves and you don’t get the closure you wanted. Sometimes you work incredibly hard and somebody else gets picked. Sometimes you make a mistake and have to live with the consequences. Sometimes somebody else makes a mistake and you have to live with those consequences too.

Those are hard cards. And I don’t think pretending otherwise makes us stronger.

There are parts of my story I can appreciate now that I absolutely did not appreciate while I was living them. There are also parts I still wouldn’t choose again. We sometimes rush too quickly to put a nice little bow around painful experiences and say, “Well, everything happens for a reason.”

I don’t know that I believe that.

But I do believe we get to decide what we do next.

At some point, I realized I had spent way too much time staring at cards that weren’t even in my hand. What if that opportunity had worked out? What if that relationship had gone differently? What if I had made a different decision? Those questions can keep you occupied for a very long time. They just can’t move you forward.

Eventually, you have to look down at the cards actually sitting in front of you and say, “Alright. This is what I’ve got. How do I play it well?”

That changed a lot for me. I stopped seeing every rejection as evidence that I wasn’t enough and started asking what it could teach me. I stopped looking at every setback as lost time and started wondering what I could build from it. I stopped being quite so embarrassed by the winding parts of my story and started realizing those were often the parts people connected with most.

Funny enough, many of the experiences I once saw as disadvantages have become some of the most useful parts of who I am today. Rejection gave me empathy. Failure gave me perspective. Starting over taught me that starting over won’t kill you. Being underestimated gave me a pretty healthy chip on my shoulder. Not a giant chip. Just a tasteful, professionally sized chip. The kind you can still wear with a sport coat.

The closed doors taught me to build my own doors. The seasons when I didn’t feel like I belonged made me notice the person standing in the corner of the room wondering if they belong. The heartbreak gave me depth. The uncertainty taught me how to keep moving without knowing exactly where everything was going.

And the winding path gave me something the straight path never could have given me: a life I can actually talk about.

So much of what I get to do now involves standing in front of people and talking about leadership, failure, courage, presence, relationships and what it means to keep showing up when life doesn’t go according to plan. It would be pretty difficult to talk honestly about any of that if everything had always gone according to plan.

Turns out, perfection doesn’t give you a lot of material.

The parts of my story I once wanted to edit out are often the exact parts that allow me to connect with someone now. When someone tells me they’ve been rejected, I know that feeling. When someone is starting over, I understand some of that fear. When someone is staring at an uncertain future, I’ve been there too.

Maybe that’s what I misunderstood for so long. I thought success meant eventually getting a better hand.

Maybe it’s actually becoming a better player.

Because you don’t control every card. You don’t control where you started. You don’t control what somebody else did. You don’t control who stays, who leaves, who believes in you, who overlooks you or which doors open.

You control how you play the hand.

That doesn’t mean you have to be thankful for every painful experience. Some chapters just hurt. Some were unfair. Some you would change in a heartbeat if you could. But you can spend the rest of your life wishing you had been dealt different cards, or you can get really, really good at playing the ones you have.

When I look back now, I can see that some of the cards I wanted to throw away became incredibly important later. The rejection made me hungrier. The setbacks slowed me down long enough to learn. The people who didn’t believe in me forced me to decide whether I believed in myself. The unexpected turns took me places I never would have been brave enough to choose on my own.

Somehow, this weird collection of wins, losses, mistakes, heartbreak, second chances and completely unplanned detours became my life. Not the life I would have written at 20. Probably not the life I would have written at 30.

And maybe that’s a good thing.

Because I really like the life I’m living now.

So if you’re staring at your own hand thinking, “This is absolutely not what I ordered,” I get it. Maybe the job disappeared. Maybe the relationship changed. Maybe somebody said no. Maybe your timeline got blown up. Maybe everyone around you seems three steps ahead while you’re still trying to figure out what game we’re playing.

You don’t have to love the cards. But they’re yours.

Play them with courage. Play them with creativity. Play them with patience. Bluff occasionally. I’m pretty sure that’s biblical. Don’t fact-check me.

Play them with enough confidence that someone watching would swear this was the hand you wanted all along.

Because the hand doesn’t get the final word.

The player does.

Keep the fire burning. 🔥