This is my new part-time home.
Three afternoons a week, I’ll be found in the stands writing or editing, while our youngest, Thomas, or Temo to his close friends and family, does his football training.
If you’ve got young kids who are interested in football, he talks about his experiences of under-13 academy selection and has started a series of videos on practical football tips here:
Friends and family know I’m not the world’s biggest football fan. My parents moved us to Egypt when I was eight and we lived there until I was eleven, which I now realize are key years for building support for a team or finding a youth team to play yourself. I watch the World Cup and the odd big fixture but that’s about it, so I have no idea where Thomas’s passion for the game came from. There was no football on TV as a baby, but as soon as he could sit up, he would insist on batting a ball back and forth with me or Amy. When he could stand, he would dribble the ball and practice shooting in our living room. I still don’t think he’d seen a football match.
When he was a little over one, we went to a school fete and a former Stoke City player saw him taking shots on goal and said, “That kid’s going to be a professional.” He’s had similar comments throughout childhood and before we left the UK, he was supposed to have two trials with good English clubs, which were cancelled because of the pandemic.
In 2018, when he was six, he was frustrated by his inability to juggle the ball, to do keepy-ups or kick-ups, depending on where you are in the world. We showed him a couple of videos and suggested he spent some time in the garden each day practicing. He did exactly that without Amy or I ever even asking or reminding him. We’ve never had to push him. His passion comes from within. We’ve watched him work through tears, frustration, and anger, and come back for more, practicing, practicing, always practicing. Now, a little over twelve, he can control the ball brilliantly, and do hundreds of keepy-ups. He makes it look easy, but behind the smooth skill are weeks, months, and years of dedication.
I might not know a lot about football, but I know an awful lot about passion and the excellence it inspires in people. Watching Temo go through the selection process made me think about my own passion. I’ve previously written about some of the hardships we’ve endured in the process of building a writing career, but I wouldn’t change a thing. Becoming a better writer continues to be its own reward for me. There is nothing like the satisfaction that comes from feeling I’ve developed my skills at my life’s passion.
Too often we are encouraged to judge ourselves by external measures. Exams, salaries, homes, cars, holidays – the trappings of success, most of which are transient. Gratification, if achieved, is often instant or nearly so. Advertising tells us that a new TV, watch, phone will give us the happiness we crave, but the endorphin rush is fleeting and leaves us wanting more. Experience tells me lasting satisfaction doesn’t come from external things or artificial measures. Plenty of people who are objectively ‘successful’ are deeply unhappy.
Most great philosophical or spiritual thinkers believe true contentment comes from within. The most profound achievements might be ones that leave no outward trace, because they happen inside us. Temo’s ability to do keepy-ups is with him forever. Not just the ability, but the mindset that whatever challenge he faces can be overcome with the right approach to life, and that lasting change can take time.
This video by martial artist Jesse Enkamp has some interesting thoughts from Shaolin master Shi Heng Yi on the nature of excellence and how it is achieved by taking a deep look in the mirror.
Patience and dedication seem anathema to a world that revels in the fiction of the overnight success. In a culture that is focused on sensation, celebrity, and conflict, and when there are so many distracting easy fixes offering to fill the voids in people’s lives, maintaining the resolve to push for lasting change can be difficult. The impact of impatience and distraction can be seen in everything from political inability to resolve challenging issues to the harmful short-term thinking of most corporations.
It's difficult to change the world, but we can change ourselves. Without sounding too much like Curly from City Slickers, I believe the key to contentment is to find the thing you’re passionate about. It might be art, writing, sports, film, work, people, caring. It could be Dungeons & Dragons, stamp collecting, painting Warhammer figurines, sex, psychology, anything, but whatever it is, make time for it, pursue excellence in your endeavour for its own reward.
It might not be anything you can do for a living, but the satisfaction of excelling at your passion is its own hype music. It feels good and invigorates you, and it is the kind of achievement that can’t be stolen. It is success internalized, and the positive feelings it engenders will stay with you. And when the going gets tough, think about a frustrated little six-year-old kid practicing keepy-ups in the biting snow or driving rain.
Temo was a toddler when he figured out what he wanted to do with his life. I have always had a passion for stories, but I didn’t follow it professionally until I was well into my thirties. There are plenty of writers and artists who don’t get started until their forties. It’s never too late to pursue the thing that will bring you genuine contentment.
BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS
Speaking of passion, I’ve just finished editing DEADBEAT, which will be published in autumn. It’s the story of Peyton Collard, an unlikely vigilante, who discovers there is much more to the righteous murders he’s committed than meets the eye.
If you can’t wait for DEADBEAT and want a fix of thrills and spills, check out THE GIRL BEYOND FOREVER, which is available from Pendulum Books now.
And stay tuned for TO KILL A SHADOW, an action-packed conspiracy thriller, which is out next month.
Until next time, wishing you and yours the very best
Adam