My problem is that I’m always too many steps ahead. I know that sounds like a humble-brag that’s light on the humble,  but it’s a real problem.  I can’t be here while I’m absorbed in potential futures. My fixation with efficiency and preparedness paralyzes me from doing anything noteworthy. I get overwhelmed by too many variables.

Imagine a world class chess player sits down for a fresh game at a tournament. She surveys her options and starts to reach for her white king’s pawn to move it to e4. It’s a completely standard opening move — more games start with it than don’t.  It allows you to free your queen and bishop and gives you control of the middle of the board. She of course knows all of this, and she knows that her opponent is likely to march his own king’s pawn down to e5 in response. Or possibly his bishop’s pawn in the Sicilian defense. That would be tricky of him. He could even pull out his knight and go with the Nimzowitsch Defense if he’s crazy. He looks kind of crazy, she decides, so she pulls her hand away from the king’s pawn. Better to think this all the way through.

The next option would be to open the game by moving her knight to f3, the good old Zukertort Opening. Of the twenty legal moves on this opening turn it’s one of the most popular, the strategy being to maintain flexibility and get the powerful pieces out early. And what would happen then? In response, the black player may play it safe by moving his knight in a mirrored response or go for a power grab in the center of the board with his queen’s pawn — or even move his bishop’s pawn in an attempt to shoehorn her back into the Sicilian Defense after all. But what kind of Sicilian, open or Najdorf? Fischer and Kasparov built empires on the Najdorf, an unstoppable chain of attacks and reprisals. How many pieces would she lose? What if she lost this tournament using the same opening as Bobby Fischer? Would that mean she’s not as good? Could she face coming home with nothing to show for it?

Suddenly everything on the board is not so black and white. Better to just walk away without making a move at all. This is exactly why I don’t play chess.

I live in a state of disbelief. Year after year I convince myself, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, that the Cleveland Browns have finally turned it around and could make the playoffs. I did it last year, I did it this year. I promise I’ll do it again next year, reality be damned.

We finally have a quarterback, I say. The offensive line was vastly improved this offseason. We’ve piled up valuable draft picks- that rookie is the real deal! The schedule looks easy. The division looks weak. The fans are thirsty. We finally have a quarterback (for real this time)!

And year after year I sit in stunned disbelief as my optimistic dreams crumble before me, one interception at a time. The rose colored glasses turn a depressing brown and orange as the losses continue to stack up. We haven’t sniffed the playoffs in a decade and a half. We haven’t celebrated a single victory since last Christmas. As of this writing, the team has lost 37 of the past 39 games with no predictable end in sight. This level of ineptitude is frankly unheard of outside of federal bureaucracy or a Three Stooges marathon.

But it will work this time. If Corey Coleman can stay on the field and Josh Gordon can stay off of drugs we’ll have a shot. If Joe Thomas doesn’t retire and Brian Sipe suits up and Lou Groza comes back from the dead. History gives me absolutely no reason to believe, but that just means we’re due. Right?? Hand me my rose colored glasses!

In the scientific world, this behavior is known as confirmation bias- the tendency to interpret information in a way that backs up what you already believe (or desperately want) to be true. You notice all the things that confirm your predetermined hypothesis while simultaneously refusing to see anything that refutes it. It’s honestly not all that different from today’s political discourse, where we fault the “other guys” for acting a certain way but then act oblivious when a member of our chosen team commits the same sin. We make excuses, we grasp for any reasonably logical explanation of why it’s different this time. We don’t notice how our attitudes depend so much on whether there’s an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ next to a name. We just know that our team is the one who will make the world a better place if we can get them in office and keep them there, reality be damned.

But let’s face it. The Browns suck.