My friend Brad and I used to play a lot of bad golf together. Occasionally, one of us would hit a good shot. Mostly, we both hit bad shots. Then Brad got tired of being a bad golfer. He took lessons and practiced a lot. After a while he began hitting mostly good shots. I, however, took no such drastic action. Apparently, I was content in my lousiness, and continued to hit mostly bad shots. For some reason, Brad still played golf with me. It must have been very sad for him.
One day, in the midst of a round of my usual snap hooks, slices and near total whiffs, I had one of those golfer-savant moments where, without warning, I suddenly hit a good shot. Actually, not just good--wonderful actually. Like a life-long loser winning the lottery, I stood there aghast holding the golden ticket and watching my ball go where only the deepest part of my suppressed and battered node of hope thought it might go. I dropped my club and began to weep silently.
Brad was just as shocked. Having suffered alongside me through hours of my hopeless hackery, he was pitifully overjoyed at the prospect of being able to go hit his second shot without the usual five minutes in the poison ivy helping me look for my ball. I could tell he wanted to say something appropriate to memorialize the moment. A mere "nice shot" really wasn't going to get it. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He looked at me. Then he looked at my ball, way out there in the fairway. He looked back at me like it might be a trick. Finally, he blubbered: "yeah . . . that. Just DO THAT!" That was his golf tip of the day: Just DO THAT.
Then we both cracked up. If only it was that easy. I couldn't "just DO THAT" more than once in a while, and then only accidentally. How could I? I had a horrible swing and unlike Brad, I had not put in the hard work to change it. I couldn't "just DO THAT" anymore than I could give birth. Unless I changed my swing, which would be painful, I would never be anything but bad. I would never "just DO THAT."
Today I saw a bumper sticker that said "Wag More, Bark Less." I take that to be in the same vein as "Don't Worry, Be Happy" and "Practice Random Acts of Kindness" but with just a scintilla more depth. Instead of demanding that we stop barking altogether, it recognizes that there will still be some barking even as we miraculously conjure up more wagging. Other than that though, "Wag More, Bark Less" is just about as worthless as every other bumper sticker premised on the idea that the key to being happy is simply to be happy.
Now, it's obvious sophistry to me. But before, when I was unhappy--before I changed my swing--I couldn't see that, maybe because I didn't want to. I would read a bumper sticker like that and think, "yeah, that guy's really onto something, just bark less." But of course I couldn't, because it was not a matter of making myself "just DO THAT." I needed to change my swing and accept the pain that would take. And every day I put that off was another day extra of painful unfruitfulness in my life. So, far from being an innocuous little bit of saccharine, those bumper stickers actually enabled my procrastination.
Of course, I don't blame the well-meaning guy who thought he might cheer up some sad clown like me driving behind him by pasting "Don't Postpone Joy" on the bumper of his Prius. He didn't do that to make me delay the hard work that would lead to joy. But, ironically, that is precisely what he did.
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