Yesterday, as part of a team building weekend, I had the opportunity to play a round of golf. The parallels between golf and life were once again highlighted for me. The analogies are countless. I can quickly think of the following as examples. Even though you have people around you, participating in the same game, you are ultimately on your own. I mean this in the sense that you obviously cannot blame other players on the golf course for how you played a particular hole – which doesn’t exclude that you sometimes wish you could! In truth, it is all up to you. On the other hand, even if you are perfectly happy with your strategic thinking (choice of club, kind of stroke etc.), your setup and your swing, you still cannot predict with hundred percent certainty that the outcome will be a perfect one or even one that you will be satisfied with. A gust of wind can blow your ball in a different direction, a small stone can influence the bounce or, to be fair, sometimes one’s judgment can be influenced by an optical illusion which is forgivable. Life is no different. When things don’t go well and we feel the pressure, we look for others to blame. Sometimes we feel that we have done everything right, yet we don’t get the results we hoped for or feel we deserve.
Furthermore, it doesn’t help you one bit to walk there on the course wishing you had the natural talents of Tiger Woods and cursing your genes. What is happening and what is going to happen for the rest of the game, all of it, comes down to that moment of impact between the club that is in your hands and the ball that lies motionless and innocent on the ground. As long as we play the game it will be our own choices and actions that become the story of our round of golf. What is behind us, is behind us. What we can take with us forward to our next shot as learning we must take with us and apply or else expect the same results – with perhaps a bit of luck here and there. Lastly and most importantly, the amount of enjoyment we get from playing is determined by our attitude to the game. And this is true for Tiger Woods as much as it is true for the weekend golfer as much as it is true for life in general!
Scott Peck wrote a book worth reading even if you are not a golfer, Golf and the Spirit – lessons for the journey. In the book he takes the view that there are a lot of spiritual lessons to be learned from the game of golf. In one illustration he speculates that the intense attraction we feel to the flight of a well hit ball (golfers will understand this!) can be explained as a taste of glory – ‘not the false glory of the world but that which can only be an attribute of God’. He also quotes Arnold Palmer who said: ‘Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated. It satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening...’ Is it not true of life as well? Life can be so simple and naturally flowing when you play with your children or grandchildren, admire nature or something that is created beautifully. It can be so satisfying to the soul to do your own creative work in something that you know you are good in and is an expression of your genius. But then it can be so complex, so difficult, frustrating and maddening if you try to make things work for you and your family while there are power cuts, traffic problems, annoying colleagues, criminals and murderers, all threatening your life and well meant efforts. Yes, life can also be sheer agony and hardship.
Life is paradox, but can it be that we can get more enjoyment and fulfilment out of life if we don’t allow ourselves to get stuck in the rough simply because we want to force and power our way forward with some idea of success as the goal? Is it not possible that life can be very different if we are prepared to surrender to an unplayable lie, take the penalty and make a fresh beginning? Lloyd Reed in Success to significance wrote: ‘For most of my first half of life, it did not matter how I felt about my work; what mattered was my effectiveness. While I happened to love the strategy and creativity of developing real estate, I had not searched for what made me passionate. At the end of every day and every project, I benchmarked myself not on how enjoyable the experience felt, but solely on my productivity. I did not understand that the two are inextricably connected.’
The problem is that our passions can be buried so deep after years of striving and struggling for success that we don’t know what our passion is anymore. Bob Buford suggests that in life we go through four phases if we indeed grow to a life of significance: The first phase is one of struggle which is trying to be successful, however you form that in your mind. The second is success, which is that you’ve indeed reached that point – something most people can achieve through focus, effort and determination. The third is significance which is using your experience and knowledge to be helpful to others. Then there is a fourth phase which ironically is the opposite to the first phase. No more struggling for personal success or even significance but surrender. To surrender means to admit defeat – like declaring your golfball unplayable. ‘I cannot control life’; ‘I cannot control relationships’; ‘I cannot please everyone’; ‘My idea of “the ultimate” and my idea of victory was stupid and empty of meaning’; ‘My need for acceptance and recognition was petty and narrow-minded’. It is at this point that a person can experience a spiritual encounter, a new calling to his/her life and rediscover the true passion and meaning in his/her life. Peck relates the story of Jacob of the Old Testament in this context.
The most critical moment in that story comes when Jacob leaves his family for a little peace and quiet and goes to camp out alone for an evening on the other side of a river. In the middle of the night, however, his peace and quiet are shattered as he is accosted by a stranger for no apparent reason. He wrestles with the stranger hour after hour in the
darkness. The stranger seems to have almost superhuman strength.
Nonetheless, just as the first faint light of dawn is coming over the horizon, Jacob feels that he is gaining the upper hand. He throws his last bit of energy into the fight. But at that moment when he feels closest to victory, the stranger reaches with a little light touch and yanks Jacob's thigh right out of joint and breaks it.
At this point Jacob clings to the stranger - not to continue the struggle, because by now he knows he is totally defeated, but because he realizes he is in the presence of divinity. “Don’t leave!” he pleads. “Don’t leave without giving me your blessing!”
The stranger not only obliges but renames Jacob, saying, “Henceforth you shall be called Israel, meaning ‘he who has wrestled with God.’” The stranger then vanishes, and Jacob, wounded and defeated and broken, limps off into the dawn to become the father of a nation.
Does the above have any relevancy for the challenges we face as a nation in 2008? I believe so. As far as I can see the group of pessimists about South Africa who are singing along with the Rapport newspaper’s heading this past Sunday: Ons is op die Zimbabwe-pad, are growing. In golf terms they are on the fourth hole and they believe that an ever strengthening wind will blow against them for the rest of the tournament. We can look at the wind and decide it’s a lost cause or we can focus on doing the best we can with our next shot – determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past. What is behind us, is behind us. The test is the quality of leadership we respond with to what has happened in the past. Nothing is so discouraging as leaders who constantly deny responsibility and try to put the blame elsewhere. The moment leaders begin to qualify their responsibilities they become political. They become rulers rather than leaders. They try to force their way through the rough and would not accept an unplayable lie. They try to save their reputability by concentrating on the power of their positions. If they fight the idea of surrender deep within themselves, they will not learn from their mistakes, failures or indiscretions and they will repeat them again.
May we all grow the character strength to admit to our failures and human limitations. This in itself will give hope. May we then have the will and wisdom to apply the lessons from the past … so that there will be light!
Warm regards
Gerhard
No comments:
Post a Comment