More than Numbers

A little reflection on how much my life and desires have changed in the last few years. And how God has been at the center of it this entire time.

This weekend, I got to sit down and play some board games with friends from high school. Not a new thing here, but one friend I hadn’t seen since he graduated high school—13 years ago!

Hard to believe 13 years have passed. It hit me: I’m not the same person I was 13 years ago.

Or 10.
Or even 3.

It’s wild how much life changes without you even realizing it. Who I was, what I cared about, how I saw the world—it’s all shifted.

If you knew me at 25-27, you might have thought I was this super math guy. I was deep into the calculus of AI (yes, the actual math), enrolled in a grad school program, and spending most weekends buried in machine learning assignments. I was obsessed with landing a job in AI, and to be fair, I liked how math clicked for me in ways it didn’t for others in tech.

But it wasn’t as smooth as it looked. Most assignments felt like an uphill battle. Unlike sports, where progress felt tangible, this grind seemed endless. I’d mentally step through the math, only to have the code fail. I’d debug, rerun, and fail again—until one small change, almost by chance, suddenly made everything click.

It was maddening. Every project felt like a cycle of hope, frustration, and fleeting triumph.

“Day one: optimism.
Day two: roadblocks.
Day three: scrap everything and start over.”

Working at this level in tech was like being in a toxic relationship. Thrilling at times, but mostly exhausting.

By the end of it, I felt trapped in a cycle I couldn’t break. I didn’t realize how badly I needed a change until the suggestion to train for an Ironman 70.3 landed in my lap—seemingly out of nowhere.

At first, I shrugged it off. But the idea stuck. I’d always been into sports, and the thought of testing myself in a way that wasn’t tied to a keyboard or math equations? It was tempting.

So, I signed up.

Training for it was transformative. I substituted long nights of coding with running, biking, and swimming. I’ll never forget my first 50-mile ride. My girlfriend and I got up early to drive to Titusville, and I had to borrow her watch because I forgot mine. For three hours, it was just me, my bike, and the sound of music and podcasts as I tackled the longest bike effort of my life. It wasn’t easy, but it was infinitely better than the mental gymnastics of debugging broken code.

I gotta interrupt myself here.

This Ironman 70.3 was an opportunity from God. I firmly believe that.

As I reflect more on my life, I’ve noticed how the exciting moments and adventures I’ve gone on were always brought to me by Him. I never had to chase them or bend them into place. Friends, hobbies, life missions—they’ve always been gifts waiting for me to say “yes.”

Take football, for example. I never planned on being a kicker, but someone asked me to punt for my junior high team. I said yes, and God did the rest. High school, a private coach, college—each step felt handed to me. And when I tried to make things happen on my own? Crickets and frustration.

So why was I forcing this AI thing? Parts of it were gifted to me, sure, but as a whole, I was trying to make something happen that wasn’t meant to work.

I completed the 70.3, met my team in Zion, and walked away with an experience that truly reshaped my perspective. It wasn’t just about the race—it was about community, purpose, and the feeling that I was exactly where I was meant to be. That led to my first full Ironman in November this year. I couldn’t have asked for a better story.

And now? I haven’t felt any desire to pursue math and AI in the past 12 months — I even dropped the grad program! The skills are there, yeah, but man, I feel so much better moving my body and hitting new mental gains that I never got from the computer science world. I do believe there is a world where I can use those skills for the better, but as of today, I am okay with it taking a back seat. Just gonna let God do what He needs to do.

So at the end of the day, here is what I’ve realized: the best opportunities aren’t the ones you chase but the ones that find you. And sometimes, letting go of who you thought you needed to be and letting God work for you is the only way to uncover who you’re meant to become.