Success vs. Joy
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Fooling Yourself
Once, after a nine-hole round of golf, I met up with the same friend who had been playing to a handicap of six. I asked him what was preventing him from getting to scratch, which was his dream, and he confessed, “I need to practice alone at least one hour every day and I don’t get the time. Sometimes I come to the course straight from a party where I’ve been drinking the whole night. I want to improve but there are so many social engagements and other things that I just don’t get enough time to practice.”
Here is a 38-year-old who has the talent and interest to improve. But does he want that scratch handicap so badly that he is prepared to withdraw from social interactions and the temporary high of a quick drink? He was looking to me for some advice. I told him to forget society, friends and alcohol for two years, “give yourself two years, just focus on the game and if you still don’t reach scratch then go back to friends, and partying.”
The desire to reach the all-encompassing level of involvement where one benefits from constant moments of joy needs to be so strong that everything gets thrown into the background. The fact is, at present, my friend gains more moments of joy from spending time with his friends and other social interactions.
Concentration is built through lifestyle and not through any formula or mantra. A person who leads a simple uncluttered lifestyle and focuses only on the activity of his interest and his family will in the long run develop far more concentration than, say, someone who parties every night and who is tempted by food, films, materialism, and any other distraction that may catch his fancy.