Well I tried to post this compilation of thoughts yesterday, and somehow, the majority of the text disappeared. I’m going to try it again though, because my message is an important one…
Life is Like a Long Par 5…You can’t give up and you’ve gotta follow thru
Let those words resonate with you for a minute…and consider this scenario. Lets say you’ve been playing a fairly good round of golf and you are now on the long Par 5…and this monster is playing 625 from the tips. You pull your Driver out of your bag, and as you approach the tee-box, you are already picturing your shot…you know where you want to land it, how hard you are going to swing and you know without a doubt that you are going to extend all the way through the ball. Its smashed and your follow thru was perfect! New plans in our lives are a lot like this tee shot. When we make decisions to embark on a new adventure (this may be a mid-life career change, a new relationship, a fitness program, etc), we have to first look at the big picture. We know what we want to accomplish and we know we have to take a good hard swing at it…gotta follow thru!
Your tempo was perfect and your tee shot had a great carry, in fact, you hit that drive 360 yards (yes, this is my story and yes, I have given you “tour power” for your drives)…so you are looking at 265 yards in with your 3-Wood, and you have a perfect lie in the middle of the fairway. You’ve hit this shot hundreds of times…your confidence should be very high…but then there’s that little breeze blowing right to left, and you know you tend to draw the ball, so you’ve re-adjusted your target line and are aiming a little right…just in case you pull it. Uh oh, did you just think about pulling it? Is that wind stronger than you originally estimated? No time to ponder it more, gotta take the shot…whack…uh oh, you blocked it. Over compensated, tried to play it safe and you’ve landed in the bunker with about 40 yards to go. Life doesn’t alwaysw happen exactly as we plan. Sometimes we think we are playing it safe, one foot half in and one foot half out, not fully committed to something and, whack…we land in the bunker. What is our bunker in daily life? Well, it could be family members, not believing in us…it could be someone at work, demanding too much of us and not giving us credit…it could be that huge electric bill in the middle of summer that we weren’t expecting and can’t figure out how to pay for. Whatever it is, we have to stay focused on the task at hand, know we are in charge of our own destiny and follow thru with our original plans! The second we start to run from our reality, our outlook gets a bit skewed and we end up blocking our efforts (or in the case of this 3-Wood shot, block the ball to the right).
So…here’s the reality. You are in the bunker and you don’t have a choice other than to get in there and do something about it! You step into the plush sand and you’ve dug down with your cleats. You grabbed your 58-degree wedge and are ready to make a great flop shot onto the green. This can go one of two ways…
Scenario 1…disaster. Lots of people are watching you, several expect you to fail, a few may even want to see you fail and then there are one or two who believe you can do it! You take your swing and instead of following thru on the shot, you stop short and the ball chunks about 2 feet ahead of you…still in the sand…but deeply embedded now. Now what, give up or press on? Get pissed and throw your club? Walk off the course cursing yourself and everyone else around you? Quit? As with life, obstacles are continually in front of us. Sometimes the people we have spent a life time relying on and believing in, don’t believe in us…and it’s scary not only to realize that, but to take a ‘swing’ at new plans on our own. Maybe we try…in the past, we have stopped short and not followed through so not everyone thinks we will succeed…and even worse, some people even want to see our plans fail!
Scenario 2…empowerment. The same people are watching…some expecting failure, some wanting failure, and one or two who believe in you. You see where you want to land the ball, take a confident swing and the ball sails cleanly out of the sand, landing a few yards above the pin and spinning back within 2 feet of the hole. Deep Breath. That was a rough shot, one you could have given up on…but instead you knew you had the proper tools to make the shot and you confidently followed thru. I’ll add that it was really cool to spin the ball out of the sand. Guess what was going through your mind…only success. Did the people who looked down on you matter at that moment, no. Did the person who believed in you even matter at that moment, probably not consciously, but you already had the confidence that you were going to succeed. Life can be really hard and sometimes it seems like we keep having set back after set back…but when we are in our moments of biggest adversity, those of us who don’t give up are the ones who end up succeeding.
Final shot…you’re putting for birdie on this Par 5! You’ve checked out this putt from several angles, carefully brushed away any specks of dirt with the back of your hand, lined up your shot, focused on a target point and…tap…you’re in. 625 yard Par 5 and you made it in 4…it sure seemed like a monster hurdle, but guess what, YOU did it! Life is the same way. Sometimes things feel like a monster hurdle. Maybe you are going through a nasty divorce or child custody battle that seems like there is no end in sight…maybe someone who has always been near and dear to your heart has said awful things about you or someone you love, and you feel torn between the loyalty you once felt for that person and the reality of your current life…maybe you decided to open your very own small business and it’s not starting out as lucrative as you had hoped and people are questioning your choices…who knows…the world is full of different lives intersecting at random times. Sometimes we have to carefully push aside those specks of dirt and focus on our target in order to succeed.
The moral of this story: Just when you think things are heading in a direction where you see no positive end in sight, remember that life is what you make of it. Don’t be a coward…don’t sacrifice your dreams. Take a chance on life…it truly is like a long Par 5…you can’t give up, and you’ve gotta follow thru!