Saturday, July 16, 2016

Round Reflection with no title

I played Friday with a heart heavy from the news out of France about the attack in Nice. A round of golf has never felt so pointless. And it was a fast round because my brain was literally anywhere except on the course.


I know none of what happened in France is about me, and I typically remain silent after these tragedies. But they keep happening. At this point I've reflected and reflected, and reflected. Listening to the news on the way to the course, I finally had a cognizant thought summarizing my feelings about everything that keeps happening, and how these attacks seem to get worse and worse each time -- and it depressed me even further.

Vision 54 talks often about being in an ideal "PME" state to play golf. This means "Physical, Mental, and Emotional" state (there are other components too, the Technical, Social, and Spirit of the game). They are all interrelated. I was prepped for the physical state to be my biggest challenge this summer, being pregnant. But with all I was feeling about modern terrorism and the unfairness of tragedy, I was not in a good emotional or mental state, nor prepared to play that day. But there I was, doing something as silly as golfing.

All these sad thoughts were bouncing around my head and I was just going through the motions. Then on the sixth hole, ball on the tee, I stood in the Think Box, took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. A voice told me, "yes, golf is a trivial thing to do in a world of tragedy. But you're here right now. You only get so many choices in this life, and your choice today was a fortunate one. So honor this opportunity." I got through the rest of the round just fine, but again, I feel so silly even sharing this round reflection because it feels so undignified and insignificant compared to the terrible things happening in the world.

Golf usually provides me much solace from the mundane of the world, but there are times like these when it feels untimely and even pointless. Does anyone else feel this way sometimes?

I wish everyone a restful weekend, and I'm going to try to get my head right before next week.

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