“Monday 5 Things” ….. The Chase …..
26.08.10 by D. Paul Graham
Because Mondays are proof that the road ahead has never been particularly impressed by the road behind.
“No Straight Lines” The best chases rarely follow a straight path. Photo by D. Paul Graham, Hong Kong circa 2005.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life chasing things. Some were professionally respectable. Deals. Companies. Numbers on spreadsheets. The next opportunity. The next idea. The next version of whatever I happened to be building.
Chases involving my camera have been less conventional. Capturing good light slipping across a landscape. Fast cars exiting from a tight corner. Interesting people with stories worth hearing. Places that require passports, dubious connections, and faith in European baggage systems. There are photographs that exist in my head but not yet pixelated onto a memory card. A racetrack several states away because sometimes the picture you want demands additional mileage. All of these have led to something worth telling through images and words. Often beginning with a Monday morning thought that, with enough caffeine, might eventually become five.
There is a curiosity about chasing. I’ve chased success, growth, experiences, creativity, and recognition. If I’m honest, there are some things I’ve chased that were never worth pursuing.
From the inside, every chase feels productive. You’re moving. Working. Building. Trying. There’s always something just over the next hill promising to make the effort worthwhile. Some of the best things in my life happened because I was willing to chase them farther than was entirely reasonable, or when others simply gave up trying.
Time and experience have also taught me something about life’s chases. Catching something and being fulfilled by it aren’t the same thing. There is always another deal. Another destination. Another photograph. Another goal. Another zero someone would happily suggest adding to the number you already had in mind.
Which raises a question I probably should have asked earlier. What exactly are we chasing, and why? Ambition can build an extraordinary life. It can also keep us from noticing the extraordinary life we already have.
So, this morning’s M5T chases down things worth running toward, the things that quietly run us ragged, and the wisdom of knowing the difference.
1. THE LIGHT. Photographers will understand this one. Light moves. The perfect shaft through a window lasts seconds. Golden hour is absurdly misnamed because the truly magical part often lasts about seven minutes. In fact, the best light is 30 minutes before and 30 minutes after the sun rises or sets. But I digress. You chase light. You move. Reposition. Wait. Climb something you probably shouldn’t. Drive farther than intended because the clouds suddenly look interesting. There is something wonderful about chasing light. It teaches attentiveness. It reminds us that beauty is temporary and oh so worthy of our attention. A sunrise does not care that you hit snooze. A child’s expression will not wait while you find your phone. A perfect evening does not offer rain checks. Some things are worth chasing precisely because they disappear.
But there’s a risk inherent in that. You can spend so much time looking for better light that you miss what’s already illuminated. We do this without even thinking. We chase the “better’ opportunity that might happen while overlooking the good one that is certain. We chase the person who barely notices us while taking for granted the people who always have. We chase someday while today sits patiently in the corner wondering what exactly it did wrong.
There will always be another sunset. Probably. But there will never be this one again.
Chase the light. Just remember to notice what it’s already shining on.
2. THE SCROLL. The modern chase today requires virtually no physical effort. Just a thumb. Scroll. Someone has a better kitchen. Scroll. Someone is in Italy. Scroll. Someone sold their company. Scroll. While walking barefoot on the beach, 23-year-olds record that you too can achieve financial independence and retire because of passive income. Scroll. How was that shot made? Scroll. Why didn’t I think of that for my business? Scroll. Why aren’t I as happy as they appear to be? Scroll. Increasingly we ask, or should ask, “is that even real?”
The internet gives us access to more inspiration than any generation in history. You can learn almost anything. Watch a master work. Discover an artist. Build a business. Find an idea that changes your life while sitting in sweatpants eating cereal. That is extraordinary.
But inspiration has an evil twin named comparison. The scroll quietly turns other people’s lives into moving finish lines. Suddenly your vacation feels underwhelming because someone else is trekking across Antarctica, photographing penguins, and somehow finding enough Wi-Fi at the bottom of the world to post, “So needed this.” When you compare, your house feels smaller, your career is moving slower, your body is older, and your audience insufficiently enthusiastic.
The danger isn’t that someone else has more. The danger is allowing their “more” to redefine your “enough”. The algorithm has no incentive to make you satisfied. Satisfied people stop scrolling.
Be inspired. Learn. Explore. Use AI. Borrow good ideas honorably. Use these tools expand your imagination, not outsource your reality. Keep your wits about you to realize that you may be comparing your complete, complicated, unedited existence with someone else’s carefully selected twelve seconds that may never have existed at all.
Scroll for ideas. Don’t scroll for your worth.
3. THE PACE. There is a wonderful feeling that comes from momentum. Things are happening. Deals are moving. Phones are ringing. Flights are boarding. Projects are launching. Clients are booking your calendars full. You walk quickly through airports with the slightly outrageous satisfaction of looking like someone whose presence is urgently required elsewhere.
Pace can be powerful. Momentum creates momentum. Action often beats endless contemplation. Opportunities frequently belong to the person willing to move while everyone else is still forming a committee to discuss movement. There are seasons when running is exactly what is required of you.
However, speed carries an interesting illusion. It makes us feel productive even when we’re heading in the wrong direction. We’ve become brilliant at doing things quickly without asking whether they need doing at all. We often confuse activity with achievement. Urgency with importance. Motion with progress.
Somewhere along the way, busy became a status symbol, and I often ask myself, “how did I let that happen?”
Ask someone how they are doing and there’s a fair chance they will answer, “Busy.” As though this were a diagnosis. There is nothing inherently impressive about moving fast. A tornado is remarkably efficient at movement and generally terrible at outcomes. Wisdom is knowing when to accelerate and when to lift, because the objective is not to get through life as quickly as possible. You already know where that road ends.
Chase momentum. But don’t confuse velocity with direction.
4. THE OUTLOOK. I believe that the most formidable chases happen entirely inside our heads. We chase a future, a vision, and the belief that something better is possible. This is optimism at its best. Every entrepreneur begins here. Every invention. Every reconciliation. Every comeback.
Every person who has stood in the middle of the storm of a difficult season and quietly decided, “This is not how my story will end.”
Outlook matters because we tend to move toward what we believe is possible. Hope gives the future somewhere to land, but optimism becomes dangerous when it turns into permanent postponement. How often have you said, “I’ll be happy when…”, when the business grows, when the kids graduate, when I retire, when I lose ten pounds, when I meet someone, or when I finally get through this year. Just enter your ‘I’ll be happy when’ here.
We put happiness perpetually one milestone ahead. Then we arrive, and almost immediately create another milestone. Ambition whispers that tomorrow can be better. Gratitude reminds us that today is not merely the waiting room. Both matter. Without ambition, life stagnates. Without gratitude, achievement becomes strangely joyless.
Chase a better tomorrow. Just don’t sacrifice every today to get there.
5. THE FINISH LINE. Every chase needs one, or at least it should. Athletes understand this. Nobody runs a marathon where, at mile 26, someone announces they have decided to add another 14 because everyone seems to be doing so well.
Yet we do exactly that with life. We reach the number and change the number. Get the promotion and want the title above it. Buy the house and start looking at larger houses. Build the company and immediately wonder how to double it. There is nothing wrong with wanting more. More can build hospitals, fund scholarships, create jobs, solve problems, support families, launch ideas, open doors for others, and push you beyond what you or anyone else thought possible.
Ambition has moved civilization forward, but ambition without a definition of enough becomes an endless chase. Endless chases are exhausting because they remove the possibility of arrival.
Perhaps success isn’t merely catching what you’ve been chasing. Maybe part of success is recognizing that you caught it, then pausing, reflecting and quietly saying, “this is excellent. Not perfect. Not finished. But excellent.” Then deciding whether the next chase is something you genuinely want, or simply something you’ve been conditioned to pursue.
We can, however, discover the uncomfortable truth that you can win the race and realize you entered the wrong one. There will always be something else to chase. Another goal. Another dollar. Another experience. Another accolade. More can be extraordinarily useful. It just makes a terrible definition of enough.
Choose your finish lines carefully and, when you cross one, have the good sense to celebrate before drawing another.
Here’s to a week of chasing what makes you feel alive, choosing your pursuits carefully, and having the wisdom to notice when today looks a lot like something you once called a dream.
© 2026 D. Paul Graham. All Rights Reserved.
Paul continues to chase good light, interesting roads, impossible ideas, and the quiet satisfaction of finishing something exceptionally well.
Subscribe to “Monday 5 Things” by clicking here: www.Monday5Things.com
Know someone who could use a better Monday? Send this their way. You’ll be doing public service.
You can reach Paul by email at dpg@imagegraham.com
“Monday 5 Things” ™ and M5T ™ are trademarks of D. Paul Graham
“Monday 5 Things” is published by imageGRAHAM, llc