Josh Stevenson knows better than anyone that we have all been reduced to mere spectators in our own performances in the whimsical game of life.
Regret, it seems, isn't an option when reflecting. Indubitably life's too short for that.
You've just got to cut short any losses and forge ahead with vigour and purpose.
The Napier City Rovers midfielder will be the first to attest to the edict that it isn't the number of times you inhale oxygen that make's life enjoyable but more so the frequency with which certain interactions take your breath away.
Just as well Stevenson is a good student, soaking up life's lessons in his bid to extract as much good oil as possible from the kernel of existence.
Ultimately the 22-year-old left winger is the son of a preacher man, Donald Stevenson, who provided him the foundation of a stable upbringing.
"Dad's always my main inspiration. He got me a scholarship in the [United] States to play footy there," Stevenson reveals of a father who is there to cheer him on and, discreetly, offer advice on how he can improve his performance.
"He's pretty good, really," he says before revealing he didn't take his old man's offer to further his education in America.
"I didn't go because I met a girl," Stevenson discloses, adding the relationship ended about five years later.
No regrets, though. Just a hint of a wiser man, judging by the reflective laughter. After all, he was in the tumultuous teenage years in the game of life.
Faced with the prospect of a five-year broad-based education in a US college, the then 16-year-old accepted the comfort zone of Hawke's Bay to help soothe his jangled nerves.
"I wanted to do business but they were offering stuff like sciences and all that with the course," he says, adding he isn't a churchgoer since he left Hastings Boys' High School.
He drifted from church more as a lifestyle choice rather than the rigours of his job as a Hastings police officer.
"Obviously he [father] is concerned and he'd like me to go to church and all but he also accepts my decision."
Reflecting on life outside the routine church and school upbringing, Stevenson and mother Gwen always enjoyed seeing a humorous father and family-orientated man who "kicked his feet back" after a day at the pulpit.
Suffice it to say Stevenson is now embracing life to the fullest, as he knows it best.
Within the ambit of chilling out is his passion for the beautiful game although plying his trade in the front line of challenging Hastings streets means he can't always make the all-encompassing training session of coach Grant Hastings at the Rovers' patch in Park Island, Napier.
"I have to take leave to play the games," Stevenson explains before tomorrow's 2pm kick off against Tawa at the Bluewater Stadium.
The "two early, two late and two night" a week shift means his biological clock has to be pretty resilient.
Carrying a solid frame, the explosive midfielder has a penchant for turning defence into attack for a team that adopts a philosophy around an envious defence in the league.
If he almost comes across on the field as a man who is making up for lost time then it is simply because he is doing just that.
In the Jonny Gould era, the teenager was told he didn't have a future in the engine room of the Hawke's Bay United franchise but, as frustrated as he was, he didn't drop his shoulders or pack a sad.
"Back then I played at school so I just came to the park to play footy so I didn't care where I played," he says, still thoroughly savouring the opportunity to mingle with senior players then.
"It was a blast even training with them. It was actually the better part of my career."
Born in Rotorua, Stevenson lived in Los Angeles where his father bolstered his career with studies.
He was 8 years old when the family arrived in Hastings.
Stevenson started playing rugby but didn't like it and switched to soccer.
"I was too much of a pussy, I suppose," he says with a laugh, adding he spent several years playing for the then fledgling junior club, Hastings Rovers.
Former Rovers premier coach Charlie Howe spotted him playing for HBHS while coaching his son, Ben, who was playing for Havelock North High School in those days.
Howe asked the youngster to Bay age-group trials and the former Western Rangers member obliged.
"Carl Bauerfeind later asked me to join the Rovers development team and I did," he says, adding it was an easy decision at an impressionable age considering the club had great facilities and coaches.
It's when he left for the police academy that things got tricky.
The Stevenson who had effortlessly tossed his cap up in the air in the passing parade had returned home in 2008, beefed up and struggling to shed calories of his 100kg frame.
Now fluctuating between 88kg to 90kg, Stevenson revealed he missed the seven times a week training sessions as an age-group and senior representative.
"We used to have three stodgy cooked meals a day in the officers' mess."
For now, he is soaking up an exciting time in the premier winter soccer competition as Napier City contemplate the double, albeit an "outside chance" of winning the Central League and the prospect of a fifth Chatham Cup title in Palmerston North if they topple a rampant Wairarapa United.
In the league, if Wairarapa beat Miramar Rangers today but lose to Petone, and Rovers keep their noses clean then the Bluewater Stadium faithful will go berserk.
"It's a credit to Grant, actually, because he's managed the team well and got a lot out of many of us.
"He must be doing something right to get us there."
Juxtaposing the team this season with last year's one, Stevenson finds the culture has metamorphosed into a more meaningful existence.
When they lost last winter, the boys simply trudged to the changing rooms, showered and threw back a few pints before going through the motions of playing the next opposition.
Now the blokes find a sense of camaraderie in the deathly silence that pervades the bowels of the proud Rovers clubrooms when there's a loss - for the record, just three out of 20 in league and cup matches to date.
Guaranteed a top-three finish, the Rovers have conceded only 18 goals but probably would like to have scored more than 23 in both competitions.
But Hastings is cautious of the side who thumped a relegated Palmerston North Marist 8-0.
"We have a very outside chance but it's not impossible," he says, adding Stevenson's ankle injury was a bruise as he trained as normal on Thursday.
Tawa, who drew 2-2 in Wellington against Napier with a last-gasp goal, are without playmaker Scott Cameron who is in Australia on a work trip.
"We have a midfielder from Newcastle, Ben Edusei, who'll be in that role," said Tawa coach Richard Martin, adding they were coming in as underdogs.
Martin, who hopes the Rovers will win the cup because he supports them and watched the likes of Paul Halford play, feels his troops' chink in the armour is their propensity to concede soft goals - 39 against and 29 for to date.