Sometimes We Win

My wife and I seem to have a disagreement these days. Not that that is anything new. She claims that I watch a lot of golf. Go figure. Me watch golf? Okay. Maybe I do. But I don’t watch any other sports. Not hockey. Not football. I used to watch football before the Bombers self-destructed a few years ago. I seem to be a fair weather fan. The other day I thought I should watch the Jets play. After all they have a new coach and had won the first two games of his tenure. I switched on the TV, five minutes left in the third period. The Jets should win. No sooner had I switched on the TV and Edmonton scored making it a tie game. I walked away. Just figured that is par for the course. (Notice how everything reverts back to golf?) (As in, no pun intended?) The Jets did end up winning in overtime. There is hope.

Okay. I admit it. This last Sunday I did watch quite a lot of golf. You see. We had our grandson over for night. And as can be expected there was a significant lack of sleep. Not only was there a lack of sleep. I got hurt. Seems that my brain and my eyes were not computing the right information. After putting the little guy down at some ghastly unknown hour I headed for bed. Unfortunately there was a wall in the way. Not sure how it got there. Never been there before. I hit it. Not gently. My wife swears the whole house shook. It hurt. I will get over it. Not sure she will. She is still laughing. She swears she only started laughing after she was sure I would live. Perhaps.

So needless to say, because of a lack of a lack of sleep, some physical pain and a lack of motivation to do anything else, I vegged in front of the TV. First off there was some European golf. Over in Abu Dhabi. Phil Mickelson and Rory Mcilroy, among others, were playing there. I happened to catch Phil, who I call the other left hander because of my left handed golf friend, caught underneath a tree. Hey. Been there. He tried to hit it out right handed but happened to double hit the ball and not make it out. Long story short he ended up with a triple bogie. Not good considering he was on the leader board, in good shape to win it all. He lost. By one stroke. I suspect that will haunt him for weeks to come.

Then I watched some golf down in California. I have to admit my heart was yearning. I needed some warm sunshine. Green grass. Birds singing. Looking out the window I knew that was not about to happen. Checked the papers. Another Arctic Vortex enroute. So I watched golf. The day before I had briefly watched an interview with a player that had shot some great golf over the course of three days. (For those keeping track I watched an interview, NOT the whole telecast) Regardless, I knew that the last day of the tourney could be interesting. And it was. It was bizarre to watch someone in complete control start losing ground because of nerves. Body parts moving when they should not be. Shots going where they should not go. I could virtually feel the quake of the knees. However, with a seven stroke lead he should be okay, right? Turned out he pulled it off. Good for him.

How much is that like life. We have some good days, think we got it beat and then disaster. It becomes a matter of keeping our focus. I find it interesting when we talk about feeling better. In the book I am now reading, Feeling Good, the author mentions the fact that feeling better is good. But we also have to “get” better. That should be our goal. So like a pressure filled golf game, a pressure filled life, we have to understand that bad things come our way. How we handle them becomes the challenge. Do we buckle under pressure? Do we hold our heads high? Are we on our way to feeling better? Are we on course for a win? Sometimes we win. Sometimes we don’t. That is the reality. Make it a good one.