I've just finished a two day boot camp trying out for the under 18s state team. Eighteen of us sit on the court not saying a word, waiting for our turn to enter the coaches room. I hear my name called. I let out a small grunt as I push myself off the ground, my body sore and not ready to face the coaches. Those selection rooms are always intense. Three coaches sit on one side, interview panel style. I take a seat opposite them, not looking anyone in the eye.

Sorry Jack, we didn't put you in the team. We feel you're not strong enough to compete at the next level.

My chest deflates. I feel like Mr. Burns, frail, broken, and most of all, skinny. I hold back the water that rushes to my eyes. To leave the stadium I have to walk past all the boys waiting for their turn. I move. Head down. I keep my pace up, hoping nobody talks to me. But my boy Jalen runs up in excitement and grabs me. Did you make it? Did you make it? I whisper out the side of my cheek. Nah bro. He laughs. You're joking right? All it takes is one look in my eyes for him to know I'm not.

My dad is waiting in the car. I get in, slam the door, and the damn breaks. I let it all out. Then we drive home. An hour and a half. Neither of us says a word.

Somewhere in that silence, I wrote a rule for myself. Fuck everyone who doesn't believe in me. I'll prove every hater wrong.

Fast forward two years. I'm at the Australian Institute of Sport and things are going well. End of year evaluations arrive. Same setup. Three coaches lined up, me alone on the other side. They look me dead in the eye and repeat almost the same sentence from that room two years earlier. We're not sure your body is good enough to compete at the next level. That's going to be the great challenge of your career.

We tell kids sticks and stones may break your bones but words will never hurt you. We have it backwards. A broken bone shows up on a scan. It gets a cast, a timeline, a healing plan. Six weeks later it's stronger than before. A sentence implanted in a sixteen year old kid gets no scan and no cast. It gets reinforced, quietly, for the rest of your life.

Every time I failed, every time life didn't go the way I wanted, I blamed my body. When I didn't make the Atlanta Hawks after a great summer league, I blamed my body. Some days I still look in the mirror and hate what I see. Some games, when we lose, I find myself furious at my legs and my chest. Why couldn't you move quicker? Be stronger? Be in better shape? To this day I still struggle to watch film, because I hate the way my body looks and moves out there.

The coaches said it twice. I've said it to myself ten thousand times.

Recently I was reading about the danger of America's Declaration of Independence, and how it may doom its people to suffering. Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Read it twice. The pursuit of happiness. Pursuit places happiness ahead of you, forever over the horizon, receding at the same pace you close in on it. To pursue happiness is to admit you don't have it. Some will laugh that off as overthinking a phrase. But words reflect our inner state, and a nation built on pursuing rather than possessing teaches its people to measure life by the gap. What's missing, not what's here.

That made me reflect on the community I built. Years ago I created an Instagram group called The Pursuit of Excellence. I made it to help people going through the same struggles as me. Navigating ambition. Performing under pressure. Building confidence. But sitting with that word, pursuit, I had an uncomfortable thought. I might have been leading people into the exact suffering I was trying to free them from. The name itself was the problem. I had built a community around chasing. Around the very gap that had cost me fifteen years of hating not only my body, but myself too.

I've chased excellence my whole career. When I achieve this, when I become that, then I'll be excellent. The line kept moving. I never felt excellent, because I was too busy chasing it. And the rule I wrote in my dad's car guaranteed it. Prove every hater wrong is a life sentence, because haters never run out. My enough lived in other people's opinions, and other people's opinions have no finish line. In fifteen years of pursuit I found no excellence. Only shame, burnout and frustration.

But here's what gives me hope. Words caused the wound, and words rebuilt me. Last week I wrote about the sentence I used to rewrite myself. I Jack McVeigh make big shots. Written on paper every morning and night, repeated into mirrors, feeling like an idiot until I believed it. If one sentence from three coaches could shape fifteen years, then one sentence repeated daily could reshape the new me. Words work in both directions.

For the last year I've been telling myself something else. I am enough. Not I will be enough when I get the next contract. Not I was enough when I played well. I am enough. Right now. No conditions.

I don't have the answer yet. I'm no pro at this. Some days the feeling of not enough still floods my body. I catch it when I can. I notice when my chest tightens and my breathing shortens, the old fight or flight firing because my body thinks it's about to be kicked out of the tribe. I name it. I breathe. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. The voice still shows up regularly.

But the words are starting to land.

Last week I got dominated in one on one by my little brother. In back to back games he ran off 22 straight points on me. A year or two ago this would have killed me. The fear of not improving, the fear of being left behind, the fear of not being good enough would have eaten me alive. I would have been frustrated at my training habits and angry at my body. But last week was different. I didn't hate my body. I didn't even think about it. I was present. I was happy. The moment was perfect.

I tried my best. I worked on the new skills I'm adding to my game. And when it was over, I was still proud of myself, no matter the score. I joked that it was a sad day for big brothers everywhere. But in reality, I had never been happier. Happy that my little brother kicked my ass. Happy that we both got better. Happy that we have each other.

Words built the wound. Words are rebuilding me. The same power works both ways.

I'm not sure yet what I'll rename the group. Maybe Being Excellent. It might be that simple. No more living a life of pursuit.