25 Useful Things to Remember When You Screw Up

I played in my first-ever golf tournament last week. My preferred (quelle surprise!) ball is pictured at left 😉

In golf, as in most sports, it’s important to follow the rules  when you compete. (Mostly.)

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it),  following the rules is not my strong suit (not in games, not in sports, and especially not in life generally).

That’s probably why I ended up breaking the rules and being disqualified In my maiden tourney. (So far I haven’t been disqualified from life, but who knows what lies ahead…)

Interestingly, I subsequently learned I needn’t have been disqualified from the tournament, having followed the proper corrective procedure after the initial infraction.

This rule-breaking experience reminded me of some random life lessons, which I thought worth sharing:

1. Stay your course
2. Consult the rule book, and ignore it as required
3. Trust your own good judgement
4. Even marshals are not always right
5. Listen to those more experienced than you
6. Remember those more experienced than you aren’t necessarily right
7. Winning isn’t everything
8. Letting go of being in the game is liberating
9. You don’t have to be in the game to win
10. There are more ways of winning than getting prizes
11. Sometimes rules get in the way
12. Conflict creates learning opportunities
13. Being flexible makes sense
14. Frustration is a poor foundation for decision-making
15. Even when people tell you all the rules, and you fully understand them, sometimes life causes you to not follow them, and sometimes they don’t deserve to be followed anyway
16. Fucking up is not the end of the world
17. Fucking up leads to many people learning so that more fuck ups may be avoided in the future
18. Play your own game, play your own game, play your own game
19. Number 18 bears repeating
20. Seek out mentors whenever possible
21. Telling one’s story helps others deepen their own knowledge, learning, and experience
22. Lessons come from places you least expect them, even when you know lessons come from unexpected places!
23. Golf (and virtually everything else for that matter) is a metaphor for life
24. Community is a powerful connector
25. Despite having learned more patience in the last two years than I ever expected to learn in a lifetime, I still have more to learn, and I have the capacity to learn more

My favorite is #16.  How about you?

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• Being a Good Sport (psychologytoday.com)
• Life Lessons From ZOOM (cookiesandsangria.wordpress.com)