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Efren's Facebook Posts
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Viral Better
July 29 at 6:00 AM ·
At 61, I’ve stopped chasing the game. I let it come to me now — slowly, gently, like an old friend who knows the real me.
I came from nothing. Just a kid with a cue stick too long for his arms and a hunger too big for his age. Back then, I didn’t dream of world titles. I dreamed of dinner. Of staying at the table long enough to matter.
I played with urgency. I played with fear. Fear of losing. Fear of being forgotten. And in those fears, I found fire. I played with flair not to impress — but to survive. That’s what people don’t understand. The trick shots weren’t magic. They were necessity.
They called me *The Magician*. But inside, I was just a man trying to hold it all together. Fame doesn’t prepare you for loneliness. And winning doesn’t teach you how to rest.
For years, I poured everything into the game. But the game taught me in return. It taught me discipline, even when I didn’t want it. It taught me humility, especially when I needed it most.
Now, when I hold the cue, it’s not a weapon. It’s a reminder — of how far I’ve come, and how much I’ve let go.
I tell the young ones:
**Anyone can learn to win.**
But to stay in love with the game after loss, after pressure, after fame fades —
**that’s the real skill.**
Because the greatest lesson pool ever gave me is this:
**Control isn’t power.**
**It’s peace.**
And peace only comes when you stop needing to prove you’re in control.
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There is another.
Efren's Facebook Posts
- By Joe P.
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“When I Stopped Playing to Win”There was a time I played to win.
Every match. Every shot.
It was about the money, the pride, the name on the bracket.
I’d stare down opponents.
Hold my breath until the 9-ball dropped.
Smile when I won.
Leave quietly when I didn’t.
But then something changed.
One day, I was playing a boy barely tall enough to reach the table.
His form was wrong. His hands shaky.
But when he made a shot, he laughed — loud, like it was magic.
And I remembered:
That was me.
That was why I started.
Now, I don’t play to win.
I play to feel.
To remember the rhythm of chalk.
The dance of cue ball and silence.
The way the game speaks when no one else is talking.
These days, if I win — good.
If I don’t — better, maybe.
Because then I get to show them:
Grace isn't just in victory.
It's in how you lose.
How you smile.
How you still show up — even with slower hands.
I play to pass something on.
Not trophies.
But love.
— Efren “Bata” Reyes
When did you stop chasing wins — and start chasing meaning?
