I love golf. I find it to be a terrific workshop for dealing with the everyday problems of life. The problem that most comes up for me in golf is fear. Fear of looking foolish, fear of choking, fear of scoring badly, fear of scoring well, fear of letting down a playing partner, fear of hitting it in the water, the sand, the street, the snack bar, the woods, dead left, dead right, two feet in front of me, or into the soft head of an innocent child at play. Fear causes my mind to race and my muscles to tighten. The swing that follows causes my opponents to smirk and count my money. Golf teaches me that I cannot suppress the fear, nor think my way out of it. My only option is to acknowledge it and swing anyway. This is a lesson that I have tried to apply to my work. Every day I make a conscious effort to gracefully accept my fear of being judged as inadequate, my fear of letting down people who count on me, my fear that I have nothing of consequence to write about, my fear that no one will watch the show because they'd rather watch mediocre celebrities dance, my fear regarding the welfare of my children, my fear that my sister will never talk to me again, my fear that I will die alone, my fear that the mole on my leg is melanoma, my fear that aneurysms happen without warning, my fear of global warming, bird flu, random violence and dirty bombs -- and work anyway. The result has been astonishing. I believe my work is better than ever. I have also tried to apply this golf lesson about fear to my dealings with women. No luck so far. I think I need to swing slower and keep my head down.
