Happy Friday! Quick note before we jump in.

It’s been a minute since I’ve sent a newsletter. I’m restarting it under a new name, The Locker Room Newsletter, and using it as a place to share the ideas I’m working through in real time.

If that’s your thing, I’m glad you’re here.

Alright, now on to this week’s thought.

When I first heard “the long way is the right way,” my immediate reaction was, ah shit, that sucks.

Who wants the long way?

At first, I interpreted it as a lesson in patience. Slow down. Be willing to wait. Grind it out. And while that is not wrong, I do not think that is the heart of the idea.

I think “the long way is the right way” is really about understanding which parts of your life are meant to be finished and which parts are meant to be stayed in.

Some things have clear endpoints. You complete them and you move on. You finish a degree. You close a deal. You train for a race and cross the finish line. These are things you are meant to complete.

But other parts of life do not work that way. Your health. Your relationships. Your work. Your sense of purpose. There is no final arrival with these things. No moment where you are officially done. There is only continued participation.

Most frustration comes from trying to finish things that were never meant to end.

Once you see that distinction clearly, a lot of pressure starts to fall away. The constant feeling of being behind. The urgency to figure everything out. The sense that you should be further along than you are.

There is a framework that helps explain this distinction. It is the idea of finite games versus infinite games.

Finite games have rules, timelines, and clear outcomes. You know when they start and you know when they end. Infinite games are different. There is no finish line. The goal is not to win. The goal is to keep playing.

The problem is that many of us treat infinite games as if they are finite.

I hear it all the time. I just need to find my passion. Once I find the right relationship, I will be set. I want to get in the best shape of my life. Each of these sounds reasonable on the surface, but they all carry the same assumption. Once I get there, I will be done. Once I get there, I will be happy.

What gets missed here is that these moments do matter. They just do not do what we expect them to do.

They are toll gates, not conclusions.

Finding a girlfriend does not end the relationship game. It changes it. Marriage raises the stakes. A new job does not remove pressure. It usually increases responsibility. These milestones shift how you play the game, but they do not end it.

You can see this clearly in relationships. Find the girlfriend. Get married. Have kids. Live the dream. Then life will be set. And yet, roughly half of marriages end in divorce. Not because people chose the wrong destination, but because they treated an infinite game like something they could complete.

Passion is another good example. People talk about figuring out what they want like it is a box to check. As if once it is defined, life becomes clear and stable. But passion is not something you discover once and lock in forever. It evolves as you engage, try things, struggle, get feedback, and change.

And just because you are passionate about something does not mean it will be easy. I love coaching. I still bang my head against this keyboard wrestling with questions I do not have answers to. Passion does not remove difficulty. It gives difficulty meaning.

When you rush to define it, you skip the very game you are supposed to be playing.

This is where the long way comes back into focus.

If the game does not end, then the only sustainable way to play it is to learn how to enjoy how you are playing. Not by pretending every moment is fun, but by letting the reps themselves matter. By finding satisfaction in showing up, even when progress feels slow or invisible.

The long way is not about patience. It is about participation.

This is an infinite game. There is no box to check. And the long way is not a detour.

It is the way.

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