Deepak Chopra
I've long believed that the lessons of golf are fully applicable to life and vice versa. I think of the various lessons I've learned and I forget whether I first learned them in golf or life. For example, golf requires us to play the ball as it lies. Life also requires us to accept limitations, givens. We must try to do our best, to improve our lives and to hit the ball where we can get better lies, but once it's our turn to hit the ball we have to go with what we have. Similarly, we can't rewrite history in life or golf. We can't improve our past lives or or scores by trying to change the scorecard. We have to accept the past as over and move on.
Deepak Chopra is one who has seen how much we can learn from golf about living our lives and vice versa. He is a giant in the self-help field. He was at one time one of America's foremost endocrinologists. He is a respected spiritual leader. From his website, I've learned that he has written more than twenty-five books, which have been translated into thirty-five languages. He is also the author of more than one hundred audio- and videotape series. In 1999 Time magazine selected Dr. Chopra as one of the Top 100 Icons and Heroes of the Century, describing him as "the poet-prophet of alternative medicine." He is very busy and sought after so I was somewhat surprised to find out that he is an avid student of golf, having recently started to play and having written Golf for Enlightenment: The Seven Lessons for the Game of Life.
I first learned of Chopra's interest in golf from Who's Your Caddy?, the entertaining book by Rick Reilly. Reilly set out to caddy for various famous professional and amateur golfers, including Chopra. In Reilly's chapter about Chopra, he describes the key golf insight mentioned by Chopra: Play one shot at a time. As soon as a player allows a shot to be influenced by the past or future, he is likely to fail. As Chopra might say, forget Karma when it comes to golf.
This is also a key part of a successful life. We may not be able to forget Karma but we still have to try to live for the moment. If we can enjoy every minute, hour and day for itself, if we can avoid tainting the moment by thinking about failures of the past or hopes for the future, we will be more successful. It's difficult to avoid thinking about the past and we must retain the lessons of the past. It's difficult to avoid thinking about the future, about hopes and dreams. But such thinking distracts from the moment, can cause us to lose focus, can reduce our enjoyment of what we're doing right now.
Apply the lessons of golf to your life. Do your best in the moment, play your best without fear, commit to what you're doing. You'll play better golf and have a better life.
5-24-04
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