I Was Never Meant to Win the Game

Have you ever believed in something — like really believed in it — only to one day find out it was a lie the whole time?

I don’t know if there is disappointment quite like it.

When your life is built around an idea, or your decisions are formed around the idea of a thing, and then one day tragedy strikes, and your eyes can clearly see something you SHOULD have been able to see all along.

Over the past 3 years, tragedy hit. And I mean it hit like I owed it money.
Like Ali himself had a vendetta against me.

A 3-piece combo that rocked me.

The first major hit:

The biggest shake-up of my career. I was center-adjacent to organizational conflict and had to make some really tough decisions. Deceit, layoffs, board conflicts, reporters — it was a real mess.

I left when the dust settled, but my time there would cost my mental health and all of the relationships I had known for 6 years.

What did I learn?

That my leadership is much better spent making hard decisions on the front end than trying to keep everyone happy. The people pleaser in me added to the already tremendously difficult dynamics at play.

The second major hit:

My son was diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes. If you’re unfamiliar, this is the diabetes that can’t be fixed with diet. It’s a breakdown of the pancreas and its ability to produce insulin.

My 5-year-old, hit with a life sentence.

My wife and I in despair.
Afraid of losing our son.
Afraid of this being his reality.

New routines.
New questions.
New fears.

What did I learn?

Well, I’m still not sure. But one thing I do know: I’m not wasting my energy on things that aren’t meaningful to me.

The third major hit:

After making the decision to leave my job, I applied and applied and applied for jobs, and I never landed a role.

Me! Tristan Gist!

With a bachelor’s and master’s.
With years of executive leadership experience.
The Swiss Army knife.

And yet, not a single opportunity came my way.
At least not the traditional way.

I even applied to roles beneath my education and work experience and… nada.

Now, as you can imagine, my identity started to take a hit. These tragedies were making a fool of what I believed about myself.

AND, the icing on the cake, Kamala lost the presidential election. WHAT?

Were people really serious?
Were we unable to see how vastly different the two candidates were?

Did this Black woman, with all of this experience and all of this education, who was currently sitting in the second-highest office in our country, really lose to a charlatan?

How could she lose?

I couldn’t help but see myself and the results that were in store for me.

It left me asking:
What game are we all playing at here?

The job loss, the now-obsolete relationships, my son’s health, the country in a frenzy, and to top it off, I’m struggling to take care of my family?

I realized the game I was playing was never meant for me to win.

It was simply meant to keep me on the board.

The worst thing about the game is that I learned it early in life.

To assimilate in order to look worthy of the game.
To play it safe in order to not lose my seat at the table.
To consider the other players’ needs more than my own for favor in the game.
To diminish myself and not let others see that I had more than the game would allow me to express.

And if I played this game — and played it better than anyone else — my reward would be the life I always wanted. That I would get everything I lost along the way. That joy and acceptance and invitation would all be waiting for me.

The cost, however, had already been paid.

And it was too much.

Well, I’m happy to say that, for me, the game has come to an end.

I’ve got no more pieces to play.
No more moves to make.
No more rules to follow.

My life, what I want,
what I dream of,
can only be attained by breaking the rules.

By standing in my agency.
By no longer waiting for access, but creating my own doors.
By giving less and less of a damn what people think of me.
By throwing the board away and vehemently coming after anything that resembles that dreadful game.
By showing up to the world fully Tristan.

Not just for my sake, but for my wife and my children.

In the words of Elphaba Thropp, when enticed to surrender in order to receive everything she’d ever wanted…

“But I don’t want to. I can’t want it… anymore.”

My awakening was here.

And it only took the old version of me dying before my very eyes.

That 3-piece combo, though.

Damn.

So what is Tristan up to now? 😁😏