IN THE GAME

I logged back into LinkedIn a few weeks ago.

First time in three years.

Within five minutes, I felt it.

That old, familiar weight. The sense of being behind.

Promotions. Credentials. New titles. Travel. Everyone moving up, moving forward, moving somewhere that looked impressive.

And me? I came back with an article about invisible progress. A reflection maybe fifty people would read.

Nothing to announce. Nothing that looked like progress from the outside.

For a moment — longer than I want to admit — I questioned everything.

What have I been doing while everyone else was building credentials?

Then I remembered what I had written just two months ago. About choosing to sit still as 2025 turned into 2026. About noticing what was actually there instead of constantly moving toward what should be next.

I had fallen right back into the trap.

Measuring myself against other people’s highlight reels. Wondering if I should go back to collecting credentials. The next degree. The next certification. The thing that looks impressive on a profile but changes nothing about how you actually live.

I used to pursue those things early in my career. They opened doors. But somewhere along the way, it started to feel forced. Like playing by rules I did not write. Like a treadmill where one qualification leads to the next and satisfaction never arrives.

So I stopped.

Not because I became lazy. But because I chose to pay attention to different things.

And sitting there on LinkedIn, I had to remind myself: that choice was deliberate.

I am not behind.

I am just playing a different game.

The Game and The Gap

There are two ways of looking at your life at any given moment.

You are either in the game or in the gap.

When you are in the game, you are present to what you have. Grateful for it. Working with it. Building from it.

When you are in the gap, you are focused on what is missing. What you should have by now. What others have that you do not. Where you are behind.

Most of us spend far more time in the gap than we realize.

And here is what makes it dangerous:

If you focus on what you have, you get what you do not have. If you focus on what you do not have, you lose what you have.

Read that again.

Because it sounds simple until you sit with it.

When you are grateful for what is working, you build from strength. You notice opportunities. You invest energy in what matters. And somehow — not magically, but practically — more good things arrive.

When you are obsessed with what is missing, you erode what is present. You take for granted the things that are working. You stop investing in them. And slowly, quietly, they start to disappear.

The job you complained about daily until it was gone.

The relationship you took for granted until it ended.

The friendships you stopped investing in until you realized one day you had no one to call.

What I Almost Missed

It is March now. Two months into the year.

And if I am honest, I have been better lately at noticing what is actually here instead of only seeing what is missing.

Not perfectly. But better than I was three years ago when I was moving through life on autopilot.

One of the ways I am learning to stay out of the gap is simple: count your blessings. Periodically. Deliberately.

Sit down. Look back over a stretch of time. And ask: What are three things I am grateful for that I might have missed if I had not stopped to ask?

So I did that this week. Two months into the year. Three things.

Here is what appeared.

1. I Started Paying Attention Again

In November, I started writing again after three years of silence.

Not publicly at first. Just privately. In a journal. Paying attention to what I was noticing.

In January, I moved the blog to a better platform and started sharing some of it publicly.

And in February, I kept going. Every week.

This is not easy for me.

I am someone who prefers keeping to myself. Even when I want to share something, there is always a voice that says: Who needs to hear this? Just keep it private.

But I have been pushing past that voice. Because it is growth for me. Overcoming a fear. Doing something that genuinely scares me. And I am hoping it is the start of doing more things that scare me.

But here is what I almost missed: the sharing is not really about the blog itself.

It is about what it forces me to do.

When you know you are going to share something, you pay attention differently. The conversation with a colleague is no longer just small talk — it is material. The observation on the drive home is no longer just a passing thought — it is worth capturing. The pattern you notice at work is no longer just background noise — it is data.

Writing publicly has made me more present to my own life.

Four months ago, I was moving through days without really seeing them.

Now I am paying attention.

That is not nothing.

2. My Wife Got Her Job Back

Six months.

That is how long she was out of work after her contract ended unexpectedly last year.

Six months of uncertainty. Of budgets tightening. Of wondering when the next opportunity would come.

In January, her contract was renewed.

And I almost did not pause to be grateful for it.

Not because I did not care. But because the moment it happened, I moved immediately to the next thing. Pushing for her gratuity from previous contracts. The next concern. The next gap.

But sitting here now, two months later, I can see it clearly.

For six months we managed. And then the situation changed. Just because sometimes things work out.

That deserves more than a passing acknowledgment.

3. A Conversation This Past Week

I had a conversation with a colleague this past week.

We noticed each other’s grey hair.

There was a moment of awkwardness first. The kind that happens when you see something in someone else that you have been quietly self-conscious about in yourself.

But then we laughed. And started talking.

About aging. About one-packs instead of flat stomachs. About how the body does not recover the way it used to.

And then he said something that made us both laugh harder: “Remember when we used to look for where to link up over the weekend? Whether it was Chicago’s, Granddaddy’s, ku Northmead? Now we are looking at Movit and other black hair dye products.”

It was funny. But it was also true.

A few years ago, our conversations were about where to hang out, which spot had the vibe, what plans to make for the weekend.

Now they are about taking care of ourselves. About what still works and what does not work like it used to. About not chasing blindly after the next thing.

And at some point in that conversation, we both realized the same thing.

The papers we chased — the degrees, the MBAs, the certifications — they opened doors. No question.

But here is what we noticed: most of the people in our circles who are genuinely doing well financially are not the ones with the most impressive qualifications or the biggest job titles. They are the ones who figured out what they actually wanted and went after that instead of just following the expected path.

The credentials matter. But they are not the destination. They are tools. And if you spend your whole life collecting tools without ever building anything with them, you arrive at sixty with a full toolbox and nothing to show for it.

Or worse — you climb all the way to the top of the ladder only to realize it was leaning against the wrong wall.

That conversation reminded me why I stopped chasing credentials for their own sake. Not because they are worthless. But because I would rather build something that matters than collect more tools I might never use.

The LinkedIn Trap

Here is the thing about LinkedIn.

It is not the enemy. It serves a purpose. Networking. Opportunities. Genuine connection.

But it is also a highlight reel disguised as reality.

People do not post about the weeks where nothing happened. They do not share the conversations that mattered but left no record. They do not announce the quiet, unglamorous work of showing up when nobody is watching.

They post the promotion. The award. The new role. The trip. The milestone.

And if you are not careful, you start measuring your life against a curated version of everyone else’s.

You see someone’s highlight and compare it to your entire week. Their best moment against your average Tuesday.

And suddenly you are behind. Lacking. Not doing enough.

Even though you have no idea what their actual week looked like. What they are struggling with privately. What they are afraid of. What they wish they had that you do.

The gap is seductive because it feels productive.

It feels like ambition. Like drive. Like refusing to settle.

But most of the time, it is just a way of never being satisfied with what is actually working.

What Being In The Game Looks Like

Being in the game does not mean you stop wanting more.

It does not mean you abandon goals or stop pushing yourself or settle for less than you are capable of.

It just means you work from gratitude instead of lack.

You celebrate the fact that you started paying attention again before you worry about how many people are reading.

You acknowledge the job that came back before you stress about the next concern.

You appreciate the conversation that reminded you why you made the choices you made.

Because here is what I am learning:

The people who build the most impressive lives are not the ones obsessed with what they do not have yet. They are the ones who are deeply grateful for what is already working.

They notice the small wins. They celebrate progress that does not show up on a resume. They invest in relationships that will never trend on social media.

And somehow — not magically, but practically — more good things arrive.

Not because they deserved them. But because they were present enough to notice when opportunities showed up. And grateful enough to do something with them.

Two Months In

It is March now.

Two months into the year. Ten more ahead.

And if I spend the next ten months focused on what is missing, I will arrive at December having missed everything that was actually here.

But if I spend them in the game — noticing what is working, being grateful for it, building from it — I suspect the year will look very different.

Not because everything will go perfectly. But because I will have been present for the parts that mattered.

So this is the question I am sitting with. And leaving here for you.

What are you grateful for right now that you almost missed because you were too busy looking at what is not here yet?

Not the big things. Not the milestones. Not the achievements worth posting.

The conversation that mattered. The small win nobody saw. The thing that worked when you were not sure it would.

Because those are the things that build a life worth living.

And they only show up when you are paying attention.