Folly and Redemption

On a chilly January night, the Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Chargers took the field in North Florida.

It was a National Football League playoff showdown, featuring two compelling teams led by rising stars.

A great game was in store. Or was it?

The game got off to an inauspicious start. Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw an interception on the second play of the game.

The misfire put Los Angeles in prime position to score. The Chargers put a touchdown on the board less than a minute later.

This was hardly the start Jaguars fans were expecting. But they surely didn’t expect what was still to come.

On Jacksonville’s next possession, Lawrence threw another interception. The Chargers took advantage of the blunder, scoring again.

Lawrence went on to throw a third interception later in the first quarter, and fourth in the second quarter.

By the time halftime arrived, the Chargers led the Jaguars by a score of 27 to 7. Lawrence was directly responsible for 17 points of that 20-point deficit.

It looked like the Jacksonville’s season was about to end with a thud. But another plot twist was in the offing.

The Jaguars came onto the field with renewed purpose in the second half. And slowly but surely, Jacksonville started chipping away at the deficit.

Lawrence stopped turning the ball over, tossing touchdown passes instead on three straight drives. And the Jaguars defense held the Los Angeles offense to three points, bending but never breaking.

With just a few minutes left, Lawrence found the ball in his hands one more time. His team trailed by two points.

Lawrence confidently led the Jacksonville offense down the field, putting them in position to kick a field goal.

The kicker drilled the attempt through the uprights with no time left on the clock. The Jaguars, improbably, won the game by a score of 31 to 30.

Their season was still alive.


In the days after this playoff football game, two narratives percolated through the media.

One claimed that the Los Angeles Chargers had choked. On the precipice of a road playoff win, they got complacent. And in doing so, they fell apart.

It was a compelling argument. Teams rarely waste 20-point halftime advantages in the NFL playoffs. Doing so requires them to squander countless opportunities, to be the architects of their own demise.

The label is sure to stick.

Even so, the more prevalent narrative from this game was that of Trevor Lawrence’s redemption. Pundits marveled at how the Jaguars signal-caller faced down adversity and led his team to a scintillating victory.

It was the stuff of Hollywood legend, it would seem. Except that it wasn’t.

You see, Lawrence hadn’t overcome adversity. He’d simply cleaned up his own mess.

His bone-headed decisions and poor throws had put Jacksonville on the brink of playoff elimination. As the leader of the team, it was his obligation to atone for his poor play.

Lawrence ultimately did that. But his second half performance was hardly the stuff of redemption.

Redemption, you see, has a distinct definition. It’s the process of getting back up when you’ve been knocked down. Of rising to the mountaintop after coming up short.

There’s a certain amount of pain intertwined with this process. There’s the haunting ache from having done your best – of having gotten so close – and finding yourself with nothing to show for it.

That ache serves as fuel to make the previously impossible, possible. That fuel is a key element of redemption. And it demands a baseline of achievement to even find a place in the tank.

What Lawrence did in the first half of that playoff game hardly counts as a baseline of achievement. He’d dug his team a deep hole through impotence, and you could hardly say that he deserved a better outcome than the one emblazoned on the scoreboard.

This was folly epitomized.

And yet, Jacksonville escaped unscathed.


Perhaps Trevor Lawrence wasn’t the only one to exhibit folly.

Yes, from a bird’s eye view, any analysis of his gridiron adventures seems silly.

This was but a game after all. Even with the hundred-million-dollar player salaries and tens of millions of TV viewers, football remains far from existential.

Yet, far from the bright lights of football fields, we’ve taken similar liberties with our pens. We’ve rebranded folly as redemption. And the implications are stark.

For such a reframe kneecaps the principles of accountability and remorse. It dulls our empathy and feeds our ego at the least suitable of times.

Indeed, if we classify our errors as chances for redemption, we fail to recognize their impact. We neglect to consider who our misdeeds hurt, and in what ways.

That collateral damage gets sidelined, deferred, ignored.

We put the humility on the back burner. We decline to make proper amends.

And as we rise from the ashes of our blunders, we recast ourselves as victims. Victims who have overcome strife on the road to achievements.

This is what happens when we tie redemption to folly. And it’s sickening.


I don’t know how we’ve gotten to this depraved reality

Perhaps we’ve internalized too many fairy tales. Perhaps we’ve taken silver linings from too many Steven King novels.

Perhaps it’s something different entirely.

Regardless, we need to open our eyes.

For when we neglect what’s now in favor of what’s next, we exacerbate our missteps. We cause the fissures of our blunders to become faults and fjords. We carry an air of entitlement, rendering ourselves too big to fail.

We lose. And everyone in our orbit suffers.

It would be far better to take our folly at face value. To accept the consequences of our mistakes and marinate in our remorse. To make amends, hat in hand.

Such habits will help foster a sense of compassion within our soul. They’ll steer us away from recklessness. They’ll provide a more sustainable path forward.

And above all that, they’ll keep us from commandeering redemption for our own grandeur. The concept can return to its rightful pedestal until we can raise ourselves up to prove worthy of its mantle.

This is how it should be. And I hope this is the way it will be.

Folly and redemption are oil and water. Let’s stop trying to mix them together.

Ghosts of Youthful Indiscretion

The dentist walked into the room. After examining my teeth for a moment, he came to a swift conclusion.

Invisalign treatments were needed. The sooner the better.

Sooner was not going to happen. Not until I scrounged up the money and checked what – if anything – my insurance would cover.

I shared this information with the hygienist. But she shocked me with her reply.

You had braces once, didn’t you? Maybe put your old retainer back in at night for the time being. Every little bit helps.

My old retainer. I hadn’t thought about it in years.

That oversight was probably the reason I was in this mess. Maybe if I’d worn the darned thing for more than a week after getting my braces off, things would have been different.

But that wiry metal mouthpiece was unsightly and uncomfortable. It cut into my cheeks as I slept. It was a nightmare to clean. It represented the opposite of freedom.

And so, in a fit of teenage defiance, I stashed the retainer in its case and hid it in a dresser drawer. As I left my childhood home for college, the retainer remained. And when I later moved halfway across the country to start my adult life, the retainer did not move with me.

At some point between then and now, it ended up in a dumpster. And my teeth drifted out of alignment.

So now, I was staring down corrective treatment. Treatment that would both be time-intensive and expensive. Treatment that was deemed obligatory for my health.

The ghosts of youthful indiscretion had caught up with me.


I backed into my career.

Longtime Ember Trace readers are likely familiar with the story. Burned out after three years in the television news media, I up and moved to a new city without a job lined up.

All my professional credibility was tied to writing back then. And content marketing was having a moment.

There was a fit for me, and I desperately needed a living wage. So, I ended up as a marketer.

These days, I do precious little writing for work. My current position is more strategic than operational. It pays far better than the job I entered the industry with. It’s more stable than that initial role. And it turns more heads at networking functions.

But getting from then to now has required a bountiful helping of humble pie. Marketing is not a profession that offers up the benefit of the doubt. A mix of persistence, patience, and self-investment is needed to prove oneself.

I had all of this in spades. And ultimately, it helped me break through.

I don’t take this achievement lightly. Yet, the opportunity cost of my journey isn’t lost on me.

You see, there are plenty of other marketers who got their start on-time. They majored in business in college. They gained footholds with major companies straight out of school. And they proceeded to climb the ladder in those structured, corporate environments.

I did none of this. So, I’ve found success later in life than many of my professional peers. And I’ve endured years of struggle that they haven’t.

The ghosts of youthful indiscretion have haunted the road I’ve traveled. And there’s nothing I can do to shake them.

Or is there?


When I was born, my uncle was still a teenager.

Even in early days, this narrow age difference wasn’t lost on me. I might not have known how to count, but I realized that I could play Tonka trucks with my uncle. I understood that we could watch Sesame Street together.

What I didn’t know was how unique my uncle was. Unlike many young men his age, my uncle had a clear vision of what he wanted to do in life. And he was well on his way to achieving it.

As early as high school, my uncle aspired to become a doctor. By the time I was in the picture, he was on a pre-med track in college. Through my youth and early adulthood, I witnessed his rise from medical school to residency to becoming an acclaimed surgeon. He now oversees an entire surgery department at a prestigious hospital.

My uncle was certainly “on-time” for attaining these accolades. But that required a remarkable clarity of vision during his teenage years. And that fact, more than anything, has left me awestruck.

Why? Because my teenage years were a complete mess. I wasn’t running afoul of the law or partying until 4 AM each night. But despite my best intentions, I wasn’t doing anything to set myself up for long-term success either.

I waffled over which profession to pursue. I stopped wearing my retainer. I couldn’t manage my own finances properly.

These decisions – and more – would haunt me for years to come. They left costly holes for me to dig out of before I could know what it was like to thrive.

It’s easy now to vilify my teenage self for not having it all together. But if I put myself back in those years, it’s not hard to see why I made the choices I did.

Adolescence, you see, is a confounding time. As we get our first taste of independence, we’re filled with both confidence and uncertainty.

I was sure I was making the right decisions back then, given the information I had at the time. But that information was short on experience and introspection. Only the passage of time would eventually add that seasoning to my prefrontal cortex.

In short, I couldn’t have expected any better of my younger self. I need to give myself some grace.

But then there’s the issue of the ghosts of my youthful indiscretion. Do I let them linger, or do I put in the extra effort to exorcise them?

For a while, I tried the former. But those ghosts cast a heavy shadow on my present and future.

So, I’ve gone all-in. I’ve made the investment – in time, money, and effort – to rectify the results of my flawed choices. I’ve willingly sacrificed my newfound prosperity to dispel the echoes of What if?

I suspect I’m not the only one at this crossroads. A great many of us are surely haunted by the effects of choices made long ago, when we lacked wisdom and maturity.

There is no shame in that conundrum. After all, it shows that we’ve grown into more discerning, conscientious people.

But we’re also left with a weighty decision. A decision on how to handle the albatross in our midst.

I’ve made my choice. What’s yours?

The Second Chance Mirage

On a late October night in 2011, I watched a baseball game from a TV news studio.

The evening newscast I’d worked on had just wrapped up. But the World Series game that was airing on a different channel had not.

One of the teams in that World Series was the Texas Rangers. They were the “local” team – as the city I was in didn’t have a big-league squad. They were also my favorite team.

The game was nearly over, and the Rangers had a lead. A win would mean the team’s first-ever championship.

And so, I watched intently on a flatscreen next to the anchor podium. My colleagues gathered around me, ready to celebrate.

The Rangers got to within one pitch of sealing the win. But the opposing batter swung at that pitch and drove the ball to the outfield.

It looked like Texas’ outfielder might catch the ball to win the title. But it eluded his glove and rolled to the outfield wall. Two runners scored. The game was tied.

The Texas Rangers would go on to lose the game, and ultimately the World Series. It was a gut punch, but I refused to hang my head.

It’s alright, I told myself. They’ll be back real soon, and these guys will get it done.

How wrong I was.


The mulligan.

It’s a time-honored tradition.

Golfers have long requested a mulligan – essentially a do-over – if one of their shots went awry. And that practice has extended beyond the course in recent years.

A second chance provides hope. Hope for a better outcome. Hope for redemption.

But winning strategies are not built on hope. And they shouldn’t be built on second chances either.

Opportunities, you see, are not governed by our control. We can put ourselves in position to seize them should they arise. But there’s no guarantee they will.

This is doubly true for second opportunities. To get another bite of the apple, we need everything to align just right. And that rarely happens.

We can talk about doing better next time. But expecting there to be a next time is foolhardy.

The randomness of all this can be cruel. There are surely some who seize their third, fourth, even fifth chances. All while others are left with the memories of the one that got away.

But such is life.

Don’t be fooled. The mulligan is anything but an inevitability.


When I was in college, I wrecked my car.

Like so many accidents, the specifics of this crash were complicated. But the state of my vehicle was unambiguous. It was totaled.

In the days after the wreck, I called in favors to get from my house to campus and back. But I knew this wasn’t a strategy that would last long-term. And I was way too poor to buy a new car.

Just as panic started to cloud my mind, my parents called. They had recently bought a new sedan. And they’d had planned on surprising me with their old one as a graduation gift. But given the recent events, they’d decided to move that timeline up.

My father told me he’d bring the car down to me on one condition. This would be the only car gifted to me. If I wrecked it, I’d be on my own.

It would have been all too easy to ignore this warning. After all, second chances were all around me.

The federal government had recently bailed out the banking system and major automakers. Many of my classes allowed me to drop my lowest test score to boost my grade.

Still, I knew my father wasn’t kidding. So, I took his words as gospel. And I made the most of my opportunity.

I consistently played it safe behind the wheel. I drove defensively and strove to avoid risks. By the time I traded in the car six years later, it had nary a scratch on it.

By then, I was a full-fledged adult, with a steady income and an unwavering sense of responsibility. I’d come to recognize that second chances didn’t grow on trees. While I could make some minor mistakes, I could not blow the opportunities I was given.

For if I did, there’d be few chances at redemption.


Not long before this article was posted, the Texas Rangers broke through.

The team returned to the World Series and claimed its first championship.

Jubilation abounded. The Rangers had made the most of their second chance.

But had they really?

If you ran a quick check, you’d find exactly zero players from that 2011 team on the championship roster. Only one coach was on both squads.

Those guys who I thought would get back to the World Series and get it done — well, they never did. An entirely different group broke through. One unencumbered by the past.

Yes, this was the first opportunity on the big stage for many players. Others had succeeded under the bright lights before. Hardly any needed redemption.

It was the rest of us — the owners, the field staff, the broadcasters, and the fans — who yearned for another opportunity. But we didn’t swing a bat or throw a pitch. We never crossed the chalk lines into the field of play.

Our contribution was passionate, but it was ultimately passive.

Such is the nature of the second chance mirage. Lightning might strike twice, but it will rarely incinerate the same dirt both times.

We are more transitory than the structures we build. That makes it challenging for the moment to find us again. And that causes second chances to go up in smoke.

Yes, counting on mulligans is like wishing on stars. The return on our investment is low.

It’s far better for us to focus on seizing the moment at hand. On making the most of our opportunity the first time around. And on turning the page should things fail to work out.

This is sustainable. This is realistic. This is the most prudent way forward.

I’m ready to make this shift. Are you?

The Breakdown Industrial Complex

It was a beautiful day.

I was in an upbeat mood as I got into my SUV and turned the ignition.

But the radio put a damper on my spirit.

Station after station featured songs with heavy lyrics. Heartbreaks. Cheating. Despair.

These sordid tunes ran the genre gamut. Country, rock, pop. They were everywhere.

Good Lord, I wondered aloud. Is everyone going through it right now?

The answer to that was no, of course. There were plenty of people out there who were having as sunny a day as I was.

But us brightsiders had something else in common. All of us had experienced a time without smiles on our faces. Times when we sat with our heads in our hands.

We had once been broken. And the radio was not going to let us forget it.


Rites of passage.

They abound throughout our society.

We remember when we got our driver’s license, went to prom, or moved out of our family home.

And we’ll never forget our first heartbreak.

That deep, bitter despair is a unique kind of pain. The sting of the loss is counteracted by a deep sense of longing.

We want to walk right back into the fire to get back what we had — somehow without getting scorched. And the sheer impossibility of this desire only amplifies the throbbing we feel from head to toe.

Heartbreak, in other words, is a Howitzer. It lays waste to our sensibilities, rendering us a mess. It’s far from our favorite sensation.

So, why is it memorialized time and again in songs, novels, and movies? Why are our most vulnerable moments packaged up and thrown back in our faces?

Artistic license has something to do with it. The most visceral of emotions drive the richest of narratives. And entertainers are master storytellers at heart.

But that explanation only goes so far. Those songs wouldn’t make the radio if we refused to hear them. Those movies wouldn’t be greenlighted if we refused to see them. Those novels wouldn’t get published if we refused to read them.

Yes, we’re willing participants in this endeavor. We offer our attention and our hard-earned dollars to the stories of our worst moments.

This is nonsensical behavior. Or is it?


Why do we fall? So, we can get back up again.

A young Bruce Wayne hears this advice from his father at the start of the movie Batman Begins.

The advice is literal in origin, as Bruce has just fallen down a bat-infested well. But it’s also meant to be symbolic — namely as a tagline for resilience.

The message lands well with most audiences. But it failed to do so with me, when I first saw the film.

Why go through all that trouble? I thought. Wouldn’t it be better not to fall in the first place?

This pompous reaction was a telltale sign of my adolescence. I was in high school when Batman Begins was released. I figured I knew what was best.

In truth, I had no idea.

I hadn’t yet experienced those core rites of passage. I hadn’t had my heart broken, or seen my dreams dashed. I hadn’t lifted myself out of the void.

Those developments did eventually come to pass. And once they did, I started viewing Batman Begins far differently.

It turns out I was better for suffering the fall. Surviving the worst allowed me to pursue my best, uninhibited. Plus, it left a chip on my shoulder I had no designs on relinquishing.

These advantages are not mine alone. Indeed, many who have gotten knocked off their feet have found redemption in the ordeal.

The catch is that we need to be shattered to be able to pick up the pieces. We must first suffer if we hope to find salvation.

This is what’s behind The Breakdown Industrial Complex. It’s why we can’t escape heartache, no matter where we turn. And it’s why finding an upbeat tune on the radio is so hard.


Offer up your best defense. But this is the end. This is the end of the innocence.

No, an old Don Henley song wasn’t featured within the heartbreak medley as I drove down the road. But perhaps it should have been.

There’s something haunting about that tune. The soothing mix of piano, bass, and melody belies the dark and cynical lyrics.

Whenever I hear that song, I think of 9/11. It was a harrowing day that impacted so many lives. And it left an indelible mark on mine.

I’ve often said that 9/11 was the end of my innocence. How could it not be?

I was adjacent to so many of the horrors of that day, and the days that followed. I was barely an adolescent at that time, but I could feel the devastation and heartbreak.

Still, there’s a reason why there are precious few songs, movies, or novels about that awful day. The rupture was too widespread and eternal for us to take anything positive from the experience. There are no silver linings for a mass tragedy.

Indeed, the first rule of The Breakdown Industrial Complex is that the disruption must be overwhelmingly personal. We must face tribulations that shatter our own status quo, so that we can build something greater out of the shards.

All that heartbreak-themed entertainment? It’s just a communal outlet for our individual suffering and redemption.

This all proved a bit awkward for me. There was a sizable gap between the global event that shattered my innocence and the acute occurrences that shattered my hopes and dreams.

But having now experienced both ordeals, I will admit I’m better it. Less naïve. More resilient.

And somehow wishing it could all have been arranged a bit differently.


When I was growing up, my father would occasionally make pizza for dinner.

His scratch-made pies were always a treat, and he’d let me partake by punching the pizza dough after the yeast had risen.

The punch was mostly an honorary step — a way to stage the dough for its imminent placement in the pan. But it still gave me pause.

Did I really have to hurt the dough with my knuckles? Wasn’t there a less violent way to get to the destination?

The answer, of course, was no. And despite my hesitation, I would eventually let fly with my right fist.

Even so, all these years later, I find myself asking similar questions.

It’s clear that we can accomplish great things after suffering setbacks. We can find love after heartbreak. We can find passion after dreams are dashed. We can find resilience from the depths of despair.

But wouldn’t it be better if we could reap these rewards without suffering so much pain? If we didn’t have to break into pieces to make ourselves whole?

That’s not the way it works, of course. The Breakdown Industrial Complex is there for a reason.

But I can still dare to imagine. To scheme for a day where gains don’t come at such a steep cost. Where the radio might actually play an upbeat song or two. Where levity is more than a fleeting notion.

Perhaps we don’t have to fall apart to put ourselves back together. Perhaps a less heart-wrenching future awaits us.

Let us hope that day comes.

On Redemption

The date was August 15, 2004.

I was sitting in a restaurant in Upstate New York, staring intently at an Olympic basketball game on the big screen TV.

The game — USA vs. Puerto Rico — was taking place halfway across the world in Greece. It was supposed to be a cakewalk for the Americans, but it turned out to be anything but.

The Puerto Ricans showed up to play. Meanwhile, the US squad looked disengaged and disjointed. Players seemed to prefer going it alone to playing as a team.

The results of this selfishness were evident. Ill-advised drives to the hoop. Hurried three-pointers. And a general lack of passing or defense.

By the time the final horn sounded, Puerto Rico had shellacked the US squad by 19 points — the team’s worst-ever Olympic loss.

It was an utter embarrassment. One that foreshadowed the team’s eventual Bronze Medal finish.

Third place would be considered an accomplishment by many nations. But in America, it rang hollow with disappointment.

So, when the Olympics returned four years later, the United States pulled out all the stops. Our nation’s top basketball players and coaches headed to China for the games, and they leveraged advanced scouting and practice techniques.

Those moves certainly helped put the team in a better position to compete. But so did the moniker the team adopted.

The Redeem Team.

A spin on the Dream Team nickname used by the 1992 USA basketball squad, the Redeem Team label made clear what the players were there for. The foibles of the 2004 squad would not be repeated. A gold medal was the only acceptable outcome.

And so, some of the greatest players of the 2000s put it all on the line. They checked their egos at the door and committed to playing as a unit. And they did all of this with a chip on their shoulder.

Other nations had drastically improved at basketball since 2004, and the Olympic competition was steep. But those other squads no match for the United States.

The Redeem Team stormed through the tournament and reclaimed the gold. And they haven’t relinquished it since.


I’ve long been fascinated by the story of the Redeem Team. For it’s one of the most tangible examples of what redemption looks like.

We all too often misunderstand redemption, confusing it with resilience. While both concepts can lead us to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, the comparisons end there.

Resilience demonstrates how we respond to adversity. It looks at how we react to the curveballs life invariably throws at us, regardless of our objectives.

Redemption speaks to how we rebound from a mess we’ve created. It looks at how we react to botched plans, lackluster efforts, and other hallmarks of poor performance.

The Redeem Team sought to pick up the pieces left by that 2004 USA basketball squad.

Most members of the Redeem Team weren’t directly responsible for that disaster, as they weren’t on the squad in Greece. Still, as stewards for the reputation of USA Basketball, the Redeem Team was saddled with the burden of righting the wrongs of others.

They owned that unwelcome responsibility, and they rose to the occasion.

It’s an example we can all learn from.


Roughly two months before the USA Basketball team got embarrassed by Puerto Rico, I was in California on a family vacation.

We started our trek in Los Angeles and Orange County — the first time I’d ever been to Southern California. Then, we trekked south to San Diego.

I was excited as we made our way down The 5, ocean vistas on one side of the freeway and mountains on the other. I’d heard great things about San Diego. My grandparents had even considered moving there, way back when.

But once we got to town, our trip unraveled.

My family went to a San Diego Padres baseball game — only to find our view of the action blocked by a Sherpa with a tall hat, who was sitting right in front of us. My sister caught a virus and vomited all over the rental car as we drove down the Silver Strand. And my mother and I visited Tijuana, Mexico — only to realize upon our return to the US that we’d brought my father and sister’s passports, instead of our own.

By the time we left town, I was about done with San Diego. The sunshine was nice, and the city was beautiful, but I only had bad associations with it.

More than a decade later, my cousin moved to San Diego and invited me to visit. I agreed and booked a plane ticket. But as the trip approached, I started to get cold feet.

This was unusual. I’d always been eager to travel. But the memories of that 2004 trip seemed to override that eagerness.

So, I reframed the conversation. I decided I would treat this trip to San Diego as The Redemption Tour and take a mulligan on many of the activities that had gone so wrong previously.

This rebranding worked wonders. I had an amazing weekend visiting my cousin — replete with another Padres game, a drive along the Silver Strand, a walk along the coastline in La Jolla, and much more.

The curse was broken. Redemption was mine.


There’s a lot of regret in the air these days. A collective dwelling on missed opportunities.

This is only natural. With so much uncertainty baked into this era, squandered chances have an air of finality to them.

Still, it’s important for us to shift our thinking. We must go from fatalistic to opportunistic.

For second chances will come. They might not be exactly what we expect, but they will be there.

If we approach them with a mindset of redemption, we could see improved results.

So, let’s lean in. Let’s embrace our second chances, with a focus on redemption.

We just might wash the bad taste of our prior missteps out of our mouths. And we just might find the satisfaction we’re yearning for.

The Rock Bottom Paradox

At the start of the year, I gave up drinking.

I was not in crisis, but I had my reasons.

I didn’t like what alcohol did to my body or mind. I wanted to save the money that beer and liquor cost. And I wanted to ensure I was always in a situation where there was someone sober that could get behind the wheel.

It was a necessary move. A calculated one. But I wasn’t prepared for what would come of it.

For while my decision made me feel healthier and more fulfilled, it also opened me up to a constant line of questioning.

Why did you stop drinking?

What’s wrong with having a cold one now and then?

Did something bad happen?

Is there something wrong with booze?

Is everything OK?

I tried to anticipate the question. To have an answer at the ready.

But in truth, I felt like I was in that scene in Forrest Gump when the media bombarded Forrest with questions about why he was running.

As question after question rolled in, he gave one simple answer.

I just felt like running.

I can relate to that. I just felt removing alcohol from my life was the best thing to do. Simple as that.

And getting a barrage of questions about it quickly wore me out.

I understand the source of these questions. I don’t live in Utah, or a dry county in West Texas. Drinking is very much a societal norm. And I’m an outlier.

Yet, I find the line of questioning troublesome.

You see, the first question in the series is innocuous. People want to figure out what keeps me from raising a glass or clinking a beer bottle with them.

But once people find out I didn’t make my choice because of alcoholism or a DUI, they start grilling me with question after question.

They simply can’t grasp that someone would shun drinking all on their own. That no demons would be involved in the decision.

I’m not sure why this perception is so prevalent. But I don’t like it.

Why must we hit rock bottom in order to better ourselves?

I fail to see how that trajectory does anyone any good.

For when we wait until we bottom out to seek change, there’s collateral damage. Traumatic things happen. People get hurt. Or worse.

Sure, it makes for a better story when someone reforms themselves and emerges from the darkness. When an antihero finds redemption, everyone soaks up the narrative.

I know this pattern well. I’m a storyteller and a former news producer.

But are the warm fuzzies of a comeback from despair really worth the price paid to get there? Are they worth the suffering, the ruined lives and the traumatic memories that ensue when we let bad habits spiral into disaster?

Not at all.

I might not have ever hit rock bottom with my drinking habits. I might never have seen firsthand the misfortune and devastation that alcohol can bring.

But I wasn’t willing to take that chance.

I wasn’t willing to cede control of my mind just to live without inhibitions. I wasn’t willing to shed my dignity just to make it onto the dance floor. I wasn’t willing to drag my body through a round of beers — let alone 10 rounds with Jose Cuervo — just to fit in.

No, I drew the line. No demons were going to come out of that bottle. Not for me anyway.

Now this is not to say I think drinking is a bad thing. What’s wrong for me might not be wrong for everyone.

But the Rock Bottom Paradox needs to go.

We need to stop looking to the chasm as our source of redemption. To stop glorifying the canyon floor as the launchpad for the stars.

Far more good comes from righting the ship before it teeters over the edge. From finding salvation through pre-emptive action.

It won’t make for a compelling Hollywood script. It won’t make us memorable or legendary.

No. Instead we will all prosper. No one and nothing will have to be sacrificed for us to see the light.

Isn’t that worth it?