Over the weekend, we lost in the NBL.
I walked off the court furious — not at the team, not at the refs — but at myself.
Frustrated that I wasn’t better.
Angry that I didn’t rise higher.
That old familiar voice whispering again: you’re not good enough.
I’ve lived with that voice my whole career.
Most of the time, it fuels me — pushes me to train harder, focus longer, and chase the next level.
But sometimes, like this weekend, the cup overflows.
I chase too hard.
I care too much.
I grip the game so tightly that the joy slips through my fingers.
That’s when I know I need a dose of absurdism — a reminder that it’s all just a game.
The Absurd Cycle
I’ve come to realise that this cycle — chasing, not feeling good enough, working to get better, achieving, and then chasing again — is the game itself.
No matter how much success I achieve, I’m still fighting the same battles I was eight years ago when I first turned pro.
The same doubts.
The same hunger.
The same voice.
And maybe that’s not failure.
Maybe that’s just being human.
The Story of Sisyphus (Through Albert Camus)
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to an eternity of pointless labour — pushing a massive boulder up a mountain, only for it to roll back down every time he neared the top.
The French philosopher Albert Camus reimagined this myth in The Myth of Sisyphus.
He argued that Sisyphus represents the human condition — endlessly striving for meaning in a world that offers none. Life is absurd because we keep searching for answers that don’t exist.
But Camus’ brilliance lies in his twist:
He imagines Sisyphus smiling as he walks back down the mountain.
Why?
Because the moment he accepts the absurd — the meaninglessness of his labour — he becomes free.
The act of pushing the rock becomes the meaning.
The struggle is the purpose.
That’s absurdism:
to live, to strive, to fail — and to laugh anyway.
Basketball as the Boulder
A basketball career is a lot like Sisyphus and his rock.
No matter how hard you work, there’s always someone better.
No matter how much success you’ve had, you’ll always want more.
Every time you reach the summit, the rock rolls back down.
And yet, you keep pushing.
There’s a kind of freedom in that.
A quiet joy in the repetition.
Even when you’re frustrated, angry, tired — wishing you were better — you’re still playing the game you love.
You’re still pushing the rock.
Absurdism taught me not to take that chase so seriously.
To laugh at it.
To see the ridiculousness of being a human being trying to find ultimate meaning through a sport — and still love it deeply anyway.
I’m just a monkey in clothes, flying through space on a rock, trying to put a ball through a hoop.
So why not smile while we do it?
The Takeaway
That feeling of not being good enough isn’t something to escape.
It’s proof you still care. Proof you’re still in the climb.
The goal isn’t to silence that voice; it’s to stop letting it steal your joy.
Because the game — basketball, life, all of it — was never about reaching the top of the mountain.
It’s about loving the climb.
We push.
We fail.
We rise.
We fall.
And somewhere between the struggle and the smile — that’s where the beauty lives.
“The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”