There’s a dirt road on the farmland around Rupert, Idaho, where two dogs seem to believe it’s their life’s work to protect it from passing cars.
At least, that’s what I imagine they believe. Maybe they do feel some urge to protect the house along the road. Maybe they just like the chase. Either way, whenever I passed that stretch, they would sprint out, barking like they had been waiting all day for me to arrive and chase my car for hundreds of yards.
One afternoon, I slowed my car enough that they could keep up. I wanted to see what would happen if they actually caught it. They were fierce — powerful jaws, focused eyes — but there’s nothing on a car they could really hurt. Maybe they could scratch the bumper. They’d certainly have no hope of popping a tire, and they weren’t breaking through steel, aluminum, or even heavy-duty plastic with their teeth.
I had a funny thought strike me as I listened to them bark, charge the car, and back away—how often are we just like those dogs, chasing something we don’t understand or don’t actually need, but still running after it because we’ve been told it’s what we’re supposed to want?
A few Olympic athletes have talked about this publicly in a way that’s stuck with me. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, said he would hit “the edge of a cliff” after each Games. “Cool, now what?” he’d ask himself. He described the depression that followed as something he first saw as weakness — a flaw he didn’t want competitors to see.
Simone Biles said something similar after she withdrew from several events in the Tokyo 2021 Olympics. A physical injury might have been easier for people to understand. Mental health issues felt isolating, even as the world watched. She had to pull back to protect herself, even when it meant stepping away from the thing she had spent years chasing.
In 2024, CNN ran a piece on the “post-Olympic blues,” describing the way athletes can go from emotional highs to emptiness almost overnight. Apolo Ohno, the most decorated U.S. winter Olympian, compared it to anyone who’s spent years doing something they felt born to do — only to have it disappear “at the snap of a finger.”
I live in Salt Lake City where the 2002 Winter Olympics were held, and I’ve never even attended an Olympic even, much less played any sport well enough to make the Jr. High team. Still, I’ve felt that cliff edge before: when the big project is done; the major milestone is hit; or the thing I’ve been chasing, sometimes for years, is finally mine. And then… it just sits there.
Most often, I’ve hit those moments in my work. Usually, it’s when I land a big contract or work on a massive proposal. Most recently, when I finally launched a product for a client after months of stress. In the hours right after, there was a rush—a weird mixture of adrenaline, relief, and a sense of accomplishment. But it’s never that long before something in me starts looking for the next chase.
Or I just look at my project list and pick the next thing in front of me.
That’s the part I don’t have figured out yet.
The dogs in Rupert never seemed disappointed when my car drove on. They’d slow down, panting, and wander back toward their yard to lay down in the shade—waiting for the next “intruder.” Week after week, they were always there—ready for the chase; like it had never happened before.
I don’t know if they were content with the game or if they simply didn’t think about what catching the car meant. I don’t know if they needed the chase or if it was just what they’d been conditioned to do.
Sometimes I think I’m the same way. The chase gives me purpose. It fills the hours. It keeps me from sitting too still. But if I ever catch the “car”— if the goal is reached, the finish line crossed — I’m onot sure what to do with myself.
It’s easy to laugh at the dogs because they have no plan beyond the chase. But I’m not sure I’m any different when I pour months of energy into something without thinking about what happens after I get it.
The more I think about it, the more I realize I’m not sure which scares me more: never catching the thing I’m after, or actually catching it and not knowing what to do next.
Maybe that’s why the post-Olympic blues hit so many athletes so hard. It’s not that they don’t have other things they could do — it’s that the thing they believe they were made to do, the thing that defined them for years, is suddenly over.
And maybe that’s why I keep circling certain projects, certain ambitions, even when I’m not sure why.
I don’t have an answer for this. I don’t know if the chase is inherently bad or if it’s just something I need to approach differently. Maybe it’s about having a second thing to turn to when the first one is done. Or maybe it’s about learning to stop running altogether, to stand in the shade of a tree and let the car pass without feeling like I’ve missed something.
What will I do when I catch what I’m chasing?
For now, I don’t really know.
And that is enough.
Thanks for reading, and before you go. . .
I’m Aaron Pace. I write from the middle of things — life, business, fatherhood, faith, and the slow work of becoming someone I can live with. Not as an expert, but as someone trying to pay attention.
If this piece resonated with you, I’d be honored if you followed along here on Medium. I write — not because I’ve arrived, but because I’m finally moving again.
If any of this resonates with you, I wrote a book you might appreciate.
It’s called You Don’t Have to Escape to Be Free — a collection of my reflections on identity, meaning, and building a life I don’t want to run away from.
You can check it out here:
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