Play Big

 

I’ve seen the magazine covers, the IGTVs, the tweets – men in jersey's imploring you to stop playing small. Commandment after commandment, we’re offered the vaguest of measurements to stack ourselves against. Go all in! Show up big! Shine brighter!

Climb higher.
Run faster.
Dream bigger.

You were made for more!

Brick by brick, we build a Babel for one.

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A memory: Markus' kindergarten teacher, Mrs. White. She was a quiet force, waltzing around the room in her favorite black boots, hair twisted into a bun and deep black eyeliner. When one of his twenty-something tots would cause havoc, she’d crouch down to meet their eyes. She’d get on their level so they’d feel safe, connected. She’d communicate that she’s paying attention, and she’d gently guide them in a new direction.

She made herself small, and the result was anything but.

—

Now, a decade later, a 5-second scroll and a few clicks around might bring about any number of Mrs. White’s adversaries, a new slew of “Play Big” prophets. Find the 24/7 coach available to help you live your best life; “purchase your insta-session here!” Watch the motivational speaker in Converse sneaks shouting that your best life is just around the corner, and that you’ll definitely run into it at her next $1800 VIP event. But not before buying the Guide to Being Glorious You, downloading Secrets of the 100k Side Hustle, and reading 5 Essentials for the Best Morning Ever.

How much time and money are we spending in search of our best life? Will we even know it when we’ve found it?

This week, the hockey kids and I trek to our local rink. We have grand plans for Senior Night, the crowds aren't loud enough and the ice is beginning to slush. For a moment, we’re disappointed.

Soon, I watch as they toss their egos aside and settle for playing as a team until their cheeks grow pink. When the mom turns photo bomber, his girlfriend shows him how to make a selfie smile. Like this, see? she says. And there’s more! I can take more and more and more!

The game inches on with shrieks and tumbles, our hands tight and spirits high. As the late game melts into darkness, he leads the kids back onto the ice. They skate close behind, thrumming with energy, deeming our short night “the best ever.”

(I don’t know if we played big, or if we played small. I know only that we played.)

—

William James once wrote in a letter years ago:

“I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny, invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.”

One small theory, then: If we want to live our best life ever, we must first aim for a good one.

Print the Senior night posters. Return your grocery cart to the corral. Look the coach in the eye. Plant a tree. Ladle at a soup kitchen. Clap for the street performer. Smile at a stranger. Set the table. Rock the baby. Wander the trail. Find the garage door remote opener to give it to your girlfriend.

It’s not a side hustle.
It’s the whole good race.