I started golfing about eight years ago--and I've never professed to be "good" at it. In fact, I started out playing more or less as a social outlet because so many of my friends liked to get out in the spring and hit a few balls around. Playing alongside them seemed exciting and it meant that I got to explore a new adventure (which I'm always game for).
The thing about golf and the part that I love the most is that when I'm playing, I don't think about anything else. I don't think about what projects are due next week, or how I need to get the laundry done. I don't stress about parenting, or money, or family.
It's me. It's the game. Pure and simple.
The reason I'm blogging about this is not to tell you how much I love golf (anyone who knows me at all knows this). It's that I was thinking early today, as I played one of my first rounds of the season with one of my favorite people in the world, about how incremental experience adds up and equates to joy. I never intended to golf because I wanted to be a scratch golfer or because I needed to challenge myself, or because I had to add golf to my task list of things to accomplish. I started because I wanted to and magically, things have come together.
My improvement in golf has been gradual (I know I've got a long way to go), but it was born from the passion I feel about the thing itself and the easiness I experience when I'm out there. Today I realized that many things in life are like that; relationships, careers, hobbies, etc. When we pursue a passion, out of pure appreciation for something, we grow better at it from a deeper place. It isn't like being forced to practice piano or pushing through a subject in school; it comes simply--it just comes on its own. The take-away? Choose to pursue things that you're passionate about--find things that intrigue and mystify you in a way that you are eager to understand and make a life of those things--if you're lucky you may find yourself even making a living out of one of them.
