sc Stefan Coburn

Fleeting Satisfaction

October 29, 2026 · 4 min read

It is hard to comprehend that the milestones that haunt us, the achievements we chase for years and decades, hold our satisfaction for only a moment once we reach them.

Among the greatest achievements of mankind is leaving this planet and traveling to our celestial neighbor, the Moon. Men at the very top of their fields in skill, courage, and competence trained arduously to be the humans who would unlock these feats. Yet several of them found the experience strangely ordinary once they had it.

On Apollo 11, as their tiny craft whizzed around the Moon, Michael Collins turned to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and remarked, “Amazing how quickly you adapt. Why, it doesn’t seem weird at all to me to look out there and see the Moon going by, you know?”

On Apollo 12, as they headed home from the lunar surface, Al Bean turned to Pete Conrad and asked, like the song, “Is that all there is?” Conrad admitted he felt the same way, later describing his historic moonwalk as spectacular but not momentous.

Most of the psychological reward comes from the chase and the anticipation. Once we achieve a goal, the brain has no trouble resetting completely. A new normal begins, and we look for the next thing to anticipate. If walking on the Moon could feel ordinary to the men who did it, what does that suggest about our own earthly goals and ambitions?

While in pursuit, we can entertain certain delusions. The most common is that reaching the objective (money, fame, awards, accolades) will fill some hole in our heart or soul. Once we achieve it, we can no longer enjoy the self-deception.

Will Smith has spoken about this directly. Before he made it, he could believe that fame and money would solve his problems and fix him. Once he had achieved status, fame, and wealth and found he was still depressed, the realization was even more haunting: he no longer had the hope that achievement would heal him.

Many people have been bitterly disappointed to learn that a long-sought objective yields only a fleeting thrill rather than durable contentment. Most of life is the journey.

Don’t optimize for the peak; choose the right hike.
Don’t chase the prize; prioritize the competition.
Don’t idolize the destination; pick the right journey.

The real winners in life are those who love the game. And loving the game makes winning far easier, and far more sustainable.

Sports are a useful lens for these things. They strip away some of life’s complexity and let us draw lessons from something with a definite beginning and end, a winner and a loser, and a clear connection between effort and outcome. On the topic of fleeting satisfaction, I’d like to draw on two tennis greats.

Novak Djokovic: “I can carry on playing at this level because I like hitting the tennis ball.”

Rafael Nadal: “The glory is being happy. The glory is not winning here, or winning there. The glory is enjoying practices every day, enjoying working hard and trying to be a better player than before.”

Scottie Scheffler, from the world of golf, put this truth just as eloquently:

“I think it’s kind of funny, I think I said something after the Byron this year about like it feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for like a few minutes. It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling. To win the Byron Nelson Championship at home, I literally worked my entire life to become good at golf to have an opportunity to win that tournament. You win it, you celebrate, get to hug my family, my sister’s there, it’s such an amazing moment. Then it’s like, okay, what are we going to eat for dinner? Life goes on.”

Winning your hometown tournament after a lifetime of work seems like the kind of accomplishment that ought to leave an afterglow lasting weeks, months, a year. Yet here we hear the truth from the player himself: it lasts a few minutes. Then reality returns, and you’re left with far more ordinary concerns, like what’s for dinner.

Notice, though, who is saying this. Scheffler said it days before winning the Open Championship, and he says he hates losing. These are some of the most decorated winners in their sports. Loving the game is not the opposite of winning; it may be what makes the winning possible.

Your life is not a collection of a few magical moments. It is the quality and satisfaction of a random Tuesday. I must constantly remind myself of this. Build the kind of life where you are happy, content, and grateful for another random Tuesday, because everything else is fleeting.

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