As I picked up the cup, I felt it slide.
My grip seemed strong, and my focus was top-notch. Yet, gravity was inclined to foil my efforts.
My reflexes took over, clutching the cup tighter. My hands trembled momentarily, but I was able to steady myself.
Crisis averted, I thought. Or maybe not.
I looked down at my custom football jersey, now splashed with beer. When my hands had trembled, some of the liquid had left the cup — and ended up on one of my most expensive pieces of clothing.
It was the cruelest of ironies. I don’t drink; I was bringing the beer to my mother, sitting at a table nearby. And yet, I’d paid the price for chivalry.
Back at the table, with the beer now handed off, my mind began racing. I was counting the seconds until I could get home and carefully place the jersey in the wash. And I was reliving my quasi-disaster, playing it back over and over to see where things went wrong.
I was stuck on a road to nowhere.
If I could turn back time.
This is more than a famous Cher song. It’s a common lament. A wish with no chance of being granted.
For time moves in but one direction — forward. Attempting to re-litigate the past is foolhardy.
And yet, we continue to try.
There’s a reason why time travel movies are so popular. There’s a reason fashion trends cycle every few decades. There’s a reason why songs about regret — including that Cher tune — persist.
We are obsessed with playing it back. We are consumed by the thought of one tweak yielding a different outcome.
We’d rather not look at the spilled beer on our cherished jersey. We’d rather not sweep up the shattered glass from the kitchen floor. We’d rather not face the conundrum we find ourselves in.
Far better to picture an entirely different reality.
Even if conjuring such illusions amounts to little more than wasted energy.
I sat in the classroom, staring at the whiteboard.
My business school professor was introducing the concept of decision trees, and I was mesmerized.
Not by the myriad probabilities and the complicated math. All of that was over my head.
No, the concept itself had me enthralled.
You see, I had long dreamed of seeing all the possibilities in front of me and choosing the optimal one. For I had obsessed over the moments that caused bad outcomes, imagining how they could have gone better.
I tended to do this more with the little things in my life than the big ones. I rarely played back my decision to move to a new state or to jump to a new vocation.
But that trek down a muddy path that got my shoes dirty? That money I wasted because I forgot to use a discount code? I’d chew on those missteps for months.
Now, I had a visual aid for this fixation. I could draw the branches and vividly explore the alternatives.
I could make the imperfect art of playing it back a bit smoother.
And so, my games of what if intensified. What was once an arcane exercise turned into a data driven endeavor. One whose futility was masked by ferocity.
Nothing could deter me from this sorry crusade. At least not until the day I spilled some beer on my cherished football jersey.
For my mother caught me in this sad spiral. And she would have none of it.
Stop reliving it, she scolded me. We’ll get the jersey clean and move on.
It wasn’t exactly earth-shattering advice. But it changed my approach entirely.
For my mother’s words exposed an underlying truth. This obsession with playing it back, with decision trees, with alternatives — it wasn’t about hiding in the past for me. No, I kept going to the tape as a means of control.
If I could find the root cause of bad outcomes, I could avoid them in the future. At least that was the thought.
But things happen, regardless of my attempts to avoid them. It would be far better for me to focus on my response than to keep digging for the root cause.
With that ethos in tow, I find myself playing it less often.
In September 2008, the Miami Dolphins and the New England Patriots met for a football game in Massachusetts.
The game was billed as a massive mismatch. New England had won 21 straight games in the regular season, had dominated the division both teams played in, and had played in the most recent Super Bowl. While the Patriots were missing their injured star quarterback, they still had Bill Belichick — the best head coach in the National Football League.
In the days leading up to the game, Belichick prepared meticulously. He watched hours of game film, noting the Dolphins’ patterns and tendencies. And he formed a game plan to exploit those tendencies.
But once the game started, it was Belichick who was exploited.
The Dolphins rolled out a new offensive formation. The running back would line up where the quarterback normally did, taking the snap directly. He would then rush to the outside behind a convoy of blockers. Or he might zip it to a nearby wide receiver if the defense left that receiver open.
Miami hadn’t used this formation — the Wildcat — in any of its prior games. Belichick hadn’t prepared for it, and neither had the New England defense.
The Dolphins ran roughshod over the Patriots, earning the victory on the way to a division title. New England ended up missing the playoffs.
This game showed how playing it back has its limits.
Video footage has revolutionized football, taking coaching, scouting, and player safety to the next level. But it can’t tell all.
There’s always a surprise looming that the tape can’t find. A Wildcat formation, if you will.
How teams react to that sudden adversity makes all the difference. The players, coaches and staff who can steady themselves through the fog tend to be the ones who claim victory. Those attached to the past find themselves weighed down by it.
The same dichotomy awaits us. Memory is a potent tool. But it’s not all-powerful.
Past doesn’t always make prologue. And dwelling on what’s written can lower the horizons of what we’ve yet to write.
So, let’s move away from playing it back. Let’s get off the what if carousel. Let’s swap out the rehash for the response.
We’ll be better for it.