Weakness as Lamplight

I'm Not as Good as I Once Was

The Reckoning

Toby Keith played our FOB in Nuray, Afghanistan in 2007. Dust in the air, rifles slung low, and the absurdity of war taking a breath for country music. I didn't think much about the lyrics then. "I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was." We all laughed. We were twenty-something, armed, and nearly invincible.

Last week, a root canal nearly broke me. Not the procedure itself, but the aftermath. The flare. The nerve pain that lit up my jaw, neck, chest, and scapula like my whole upper body was broadcasting on an emergency frequency. Twenty years ago I would've pulled the tooth myself and run a 12-miler. Today, I'm rotating ibuprofen, Flexeril, and magnesium while tracking my HRV and lying flat with a cold compress and a neck pillow.

I used to think pain was something you pushed through. Now I know the body always keeps score. It's not that I'm weaker. It's that the bill has come due.

Last week at BJJ, I was talking to a young woman recovering from an injury. Playing the want-to-be sage, I heard myself say, "Weakness is the lamplight on the path to greatness." The words surprised me as they came out, but I think they're true.

If I'd said that to my 28-year-old self, though, he would have completely misunderstood. He would have heard it as something to avoid or hide from. He would have sucked it up, thrown that fucking rucksack on his back, and gotten after it anyway.

Back then, I thought weakness was the enemy. Now I understand that weakness helps you navigate the path. It shows you where to build bridges and strengthen the walls. It's intelligence, not failure.

There are others in this space who will tell you to suck it up and do the work anyway. Hell, maybe they're right sometimes. But when I listen to David Goggins or Cam Hanes, both absolute beasts at what they do, it sounds hollow to me now. Like pain masquerading as strength.

They say they find happiness in misery. I think they're comfortable with pain and scared in the absence of it. What's interesting about those two men is that they've made themselves incredibly successful because they failed to see what the misery was trying to teach them. I can tell you they're not content in their lives, and as much as they try to convince themselves and others, they're not authentic.

I admire these men for their strength of mind and body, but I pity them for the wounds to their soul. I want to find a different way. One that's just as hard as these two motherfuckers, but also soft where I need to be. To know my weakness and not fear it, but to use it as lamplight to make my way.

Learning to Read the Signals

Last weekend, before the root canal chaos, I was in the gym lifting heavy, close to my max on bench. Everything felt clean until the bar came down, and my shoulder shifted in a way that I knew wasn't structurally sound. Anyone who's played this game long enough knows that moment. One bad angle, one off-tension movement, and you're not lifting for a month, maybe longer.

Twenty years ago, I would've finished the rep. I might've torn something doing it, then trained around it like a hardass. That was the playbook: push through, patch later.

This time, I bailed. I racked it, stripped the bar, walked away. Not because I couldn't, but because I've learned what it costs to ignore a signal like that. I'm not trying to prove I'm indestructible anymore. I'm trying to stay operational. Tactical setback, strategic gain.

You don't have to win every battle to win the war. Every great war tactician knows this. Our very first president understood it perfectly.

In the bitter winter of 1776, George Washington's army was on the run. He had lost New York. He had lost Fort Washington. His men were ragged, demoralized, and dwindling in number. With the British army pressing hard, Washington led a desperate retreat across New Jersey, finally crossing the Delaware River into Pennsylvania.

To the casual observer, it looked like the revolution was finished. The war, barely begun, seemed lost.

But Washington understood something deeper. You don't win wars by winning every battle. You win wars by refusing to lose the one battle that matters: the one for your survival. He didn't sacrifice his army to pride. He didn't chase glory. He preserved the core of the Continental Army and, with it, the soul of the revolution.

Then, when the British relaxed for winter, he struck. Trenton. Princeton. Not massive victories in size, but massive in spirit. They reignited belief. They proved the cause wasn't dead. A retreat had set the stage for resurgence.

This is the deeper rhythm of any long game. Knowing when to hold ground, and when to give it up so you can fight again smarter, stronger, and with more clarity.

We don't often celebrate retreat. Especially in a culture obsessed with domination and success. But Washington teaches us that a tactical loss can be a strategic gain, if you're thinking in decades instead of days.

The lesson is simple, but not easy: Protect the mission, not your ego. Retreat when necessary. Advance when ready. Win the war, not the argument.

The Cost of Letting Go and Not Letting Go

Growing older demands that you let go of certain illusions. You won't always be this strong. This fast. This sharp. At some point, no matter how hard you train, how clean you eat, or how disciplined you are, your body will say "no" where it once said "more."

And if you want to live an authentic life, not just one that looks good on paper or in public, you have to accept that. You have to adapt your definition of strength to fit the terrain you're actually walking, not the one you still picture in your head.

Arthur C. Brooks does this beautifully in his book Strength to Strength. He confronts head-on that as we age and move into the second or third stage of life, our intelligence changes. When you're young, your intelligence is more dynamic, what's called fluid intelligence. It's the ability to be creative, fast, and almost without limit. Most mathematicians and artists have their best work before age 29.

But as you age, your fluid intelligence fades. However, your crystallized intelligence grows. Crystallized intelligence is the ability to recall facts and connect them in different ways. It expands your vocabulary and thus your ability to explain complex ideas in simpler terms. It's finding true mastery in your art.

That's why the best teachers, mentors, and philosophers tend to be much older. And here's the great part: your crystallized intelligence continues to get better well into your 80s. That's true reframing of strength.

The shift isn't just intellectual. It's physical, emotional, relational. What made you strong at 25 isn't what will make you strong at 45 or 65. The question isn't whether you're declining; it's whether you're adapting to become the kind of strong your current season requires.

But here's what I've learned watching other men navigate this same territory: there's a difference between adapting and giving up. And too many men can't tell the difference.

The Slow Surrender

I have a good friend who's brilliant, successful, more driven in his work than most men could ever be. He's built a high-powered career, supported his family without fail, and from the outside, you'd think he's winning.

But inside that life, he's losing ground.

Years of neglecting his health. No training. Chronic pain. Emergency room visits. Morphine injections. He finally got back surgery with a 50/50 shot of success. He's now hooked on opioids, and he knows it.

I can't know if any of this is true, as I can't see into his head, but I think it went this way. It started with his perspective. He thought of his role as the provider for his family. His only role. Mind you, he was a good father to his children and a faithful husband to his wife. But the decline in his health was reflective of his commitment to being the provider. Everything else took a back seat. Classic case of a workaholic.

He simply forgot to make his own health and happiness a priority, even in the smallest of ways. It was always, "I have to do this before I can fix myself," or "Once I get to here, I can focus on me." Guess what? When he got there, he just picked some other near or distant goal to get to. Never stopping to take care of himself.

There are so many examples of this behavior in men. In the military it looks different. Green Berets volunteering for deployment after deployment just to watch their relationships crumble or to come home to an empty house and empty whiskey bottles. Same pattern, different uniform.

The moving goalpost. The deferred self-care. The identity so wrapped up in one role that everything else becomes expendable, including the body that makes it all possible.

He's not lazy. He's not weak. He's one of the most capable men I know. But he's driving with blinders on. Intelligence doesn't equal self-awareness. And success doesn't equal health.

I love this man like a brother. But he has to climb out of the hole himself. He has to stop the cascade, the one so many men are caught in: work, pain, medication, denial, isolation, repeat.

That's the trap: when men think being strong means doing everything alone, right up until the moment their body gives out.

Breaking the Pattern

Here's what I've learned from watching him, from my own close calls, from conversations with men who've been through this gauntlet: You have to stop the spiral before it stops you.

This is hard to write, but I think it needs to be said. I fear what my children may think as they read this, but I would be a coward and a hypocrite if I didn't. So nestled deep in a random Substack article lies a truth I've never said aloud before, not to them.

In October of 2023, I had just left the 3rd Special Forces Group and signed into SWCS, a non-operational academic institution. My cool guy days were over. I knew retirement was just around the corner, and my door-kicking days were done. I had been working on my mental health for the past year, trying to overcome some destructive behavioral patterns. I was consumed with guilt and shame at the time, mostly from the emotional trauma I had brought into my own family. I was in the recognizing and taking responsibility phase of therapy, and I was raw with the shame.

That week, my old unit did a hail and farewell ceremony where you welcome new members and say goodbye to members moving on. It was emotional for me, not only saying goodbye to my friends but to the man I used to be. The fully capable kick-ass Green Beret. I carried that weight all week.

That Friday, my wife went to the beach with her girlfriends. A much-deserved and needed break. But I felt abandoned. The kids were doing something, and I was trying to distract myself by playing video games. It didn't work. I was in emotional hell, dealing with the shame of the chaos I brought into my family, the mental health struggles I saw I passed to my daughters, and the son I didn't know how to love. I was hurting so bad inside that I was looking for any way out, any way out at all. I was a trapped animal, trapped by my own mind.

And it occurred to me: I did have a solution. I did have a way to end it all. I could end my life.

So I walked into my closet where I kept my guns and thought about which one I was going to use. As I reached for the case where my Glock 19 was, I had this very quiet and afraid voice deep in my head ask what I was doing. It was that moment I took pause and saw myself standing in my closet reaching for a gun. I collapsed physically and mentally, sobbing like a child.

I called my wife then and told her what had happened. I could tell she was in shock and not quite understanding what was going on. Never in a million years had this entered her mind, and honestly it was the same for me. It was never an option, until it was.

It was a turning point for me. I had been in situations beyond dangerous, but I was never a danger to myself. That is a deep kind of fear. If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? But it was also my lamplight in the dark. It showed me I had to take a different way because the way I was going, there was no more light.

I am here today by luck and a moment. And because of the undying love of my wife and my children. But it was me who had to interrupt the spiral. It was me who had to admit my weakness and ask for help. And I am so much better for walking that new road.

So that's why I write, part declaration of life and part offering a hand to those who may need it.

Do the hard fucking thing. Escape the patterns you once used to survive, because now they're grinding you to dust.

You may not know the right way forward. But you damn sure know the way not to go. That's the hard part: accepting the shitty situation you're in and having the discipline to change course.

Just do one thing differently. One rep. One walk. One confrontation. One boundary. One goddamn truth said out loud.

Sometimes that's all it takes to interrupt the loop, just enough to gain ground instead of losing it.

The Long Game

I couldn't change that very night. I couldn't escape the tremendous amount of emotional pain I was holding on to, but I could begin to process it and see with new eyes. It's been almost two years since that day, every day working to undo the emotional rucksack I was carrying. I couldn't unload it all at once, but I could start dropping weight pebble by pebble.

I wrote about direction, process, and risk in a previous article. Well, my direction was as far away from that man standing in the closet as I could get. My process was through forgiveness and grace, and the risk is evident at this point: life.

You don't wake up one morning healed. This week has been a great example of that. Monday night, after a week of pain already and post root canal, I was in some of the worst pain I've ever experienced in my life. According to ChatGPT, "Trigeminal dental pain is a form of hell that ranks among the top 5 most unbearable pains. Just above uncomplicated childbirth" (which I immediately informed my wife about, you can guess how she took that). I could barely keep it together. After about four different pain meds, I was able to get about four hours of broken sleep. I went to bed at 9/10 pain and woke up at about 7/10 pain. Not 100% better, but better. Subsequent days, I've improved to today. Four days later, I have only residual nerve pain in my shoulder (referred nerve pain).

And that's how it goes with anything. You can't run a marathon after training just one day, and you can't fix a relationship with just one conversation. It takes time and commitment and showing up to do the hard, but measured work.

I love the idea of 1% better every day. James Clear talked about it in Atomic Habits. Maybe it was Scott Young in Ultralearning. Or BJ Fogg in Tiny Habits. Doesn't matter.

The point is this: the habits that got you where you are won't get you where you need to go. And if you're stuck in pain, physical, relational, professional, that's your signal.

Build better inputs. Burn the script that says "later." And move, even if it's just a crack in the wall.

This isn't just about your health. It's about your relationships, your integrity, and the direction your life is headed.

The Promise and the Warning

When I first began to write this piece, I intended it to be much lighter in content. A funny take on how a root canal took out a big, bad Green Beret who isn't as tough as he once was. But obviously it turned into something so much more. I guess that's a good metaphor about how things change along the way, and the end result may be far different from what you might have imagined in the first place. But it may be more honest. And you would never know unless you took the first steps to acknowledge where the weakness lies, where there is opportunity to change, and the effort is made to change, even in the smallest way.

There may be some of you in your own closet moment, an inch away from something irrecoverable. Please pause. Listen to the quiet voice inside you, the one that is actually speaking the truth, that you have value, and that you are worthy of love. And then do the hardest thing you'll probably ever do: turn to someone and ask for help.

Let me end this with a tale of caution and hope.

You will fail. You'll fail so many times you'll lose count. You'll break promises to yourself. You'll fall back into habits you swore you'd left behind. You'll feel like maybe you can't change, like maybe this is just who you are now.

But I promise you this: if you keep getting up, no matter how messy or late or limping it is, the worst that'll happen is you'll fail again.

But what if you don't?

What if, after all the pain, all the false starts, all the nights you sat in silence thinking you were too far gone, you win a little? And then a little more?

What if one day, without even realizing it, you look around and see that you're not who you used to be? You're someone closer to who you were always meant to become.

That's the long game. That's what we're playing now.