In the future, you’ve done it.
In the present, you’re doing it.
In the past, you did it.
Each part of life, piece by piece, bit by bit.
This isn’t a story.
This isn’t a letter.
It’s a message in time.
Any time.
Past time.
This time.
Life is a lot like a game of Pac-Man.
One night, while bonding with my husband, we decided to play. Nothing fancy. Just Pac-Man.
The rules were simple: highest score wins.
We rock-paper-scissored for who went first.
I lost.
So I went first.
At first, things were smooth.
I was getting all the dots.
Corners clean. Turns sharp. Timing right.
That’s always how it starts.
When things are going well, you forget about what can end it. You move with confidence.
You trust your rhythm.
Then Speedy drifted too close.
Blinky hovered just long enough to be noticed.
And that’s when it happened.
I shifted focus.
Just slightly.
Enough to check behind me instead of ahead.
The anxiety crept in—not loud, just present.
My hands tightened. My movements rushed.
I stopped trusting the pattern.
And eventually, the obstacles won.
I don’t remember that first score exactly—only that it was high. But not as high as the one I’d set earlier that day.
That score was still there.
Glowing. Waiting.
My turn ended.
Then it was his.
He beat me.
I remember his score exactly:
12,620.
It felt enormous in the moment.
Like a number I’d never touch.
Like proof that he’d already arrived somewhere I hadn’t.
So I went again.
And again.
And again.
I must’ve played fifty times—no exaggeration.
Each round started the same.
Strong opening.
Dots cleared easily.
Momentum building.
And each time, right when I got close, I noticed them again. Speedy.
Blinky.
I started watching the wrong thing.
Second-guessing routes I already knew.
Panicking instead of pacing.
I got close.
Painfully close.
12,220 close.
After a while, the losses started to weigh more than the game.
Defeat settles in the body when it repeats.
You stop expecting to win even when you’re capable.
Throughout the attempts, I spoke kindly to myself, but only in flashes.
A quick, You’re doing good.
A brief, Almost there.
Not enough to carry me through.
Then, somewhere between frustration and fatigue, I said something different.
“I thank the future version of me who’s already beaten him.”
It surprised me when I said it.
But it felt true.
My competitive spirit stayed in the fight.
My present self accepted defeat.
But my future self was already handling the job. I quit.
Handed him the controller.
“You try,” I said.
He played once.
Then again.
On the second round, he raised the bar.
13,250.
Something shifted.
I took the controller back.
This time was different.
I sat like a champion.
Still. Intentional. Grounded.
But more than that, I stayed with myself.
Every dot I cleared, I acknowledged it.
Every clean turn, I praised it.
When the ghosts closed in, I didn’t panic.
I planned.
I thanked myself for winning before I did.
Encouraged my focus while it was happening.
Spoke to myself like someone worth listening to.
I didn’t rush.
I didn’t shrink.
I didn’t look backward when the path forward was clear. I zoned in.
And not only did I beat his score—
I beat them both.
20,025.
I set the standing high score and left it there for a while.
The message is simple.
How we speak to ourselves matters.
Where we place our attention matters.
Anxiety pulls focus.
Confidence holds it steady.
If we can see it, we can move toward it.
If we can thank ourselves before we arrive, we make space to get there.
Never stop trying.
It’s okay to pause.
It’s okay to change your approach.
Sometimes the version of you who succeeds is already waiting—
Just asking you to stop watching the ghosts and trust the path you already know.
Because that version is real.
S. K. Houston is a writer and mental health professional whose work moves between tenderness and truth. Blending psychological insight with modern Black storytelling, she crafts narratives that feel like late-night radio—intimate, unguarded, and hard to forget. Her writing centers Black lives in all their complexity: strength and softness, desire and restraint, pleasure and reckoning. Across genres, her work explores healing, power, and choice, inviting readers—especially Black people—to inhabit their bodies, emotions, and imaginations without apology.
Featured image by David Valentine on Unsplash.
