Ethics Whisperer

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

The Zen of Then

While I am as dedicated a golf nut as anyone, even I can not believe the idiocy that passes for advice among pros and hackers alike. In terms of mental gurus, we have gone from a name dropping “boy toy” to a platitude machine with hair by Devo. All of this mental coaching comes down to one thing: Be in the present. Professional golfers pay mental coach quacks tens of thousands of dollars to tell them: Be in the present. I am going to tell you the whole truth about this.

At any given time, such as now, you can only BE in one time – the time that it actually is. You can not BE in the future and you can not BE in the past. That is how time works. On the other hand, there are three ways to be in the present. 1) You can presently be reflecting on the past; 2) You can presently be anticipating the future; or 3) You can presently be concentrating on what you are doing. Here is the punch line. You do most athletic things better if you concentrate on what you are doing.

There it is. The whole tamale. The zen of golf in one cracked egg shell.

Now will you please pay me to tell you to concentrate on what you are doing?

In fact, the only endeavor with more quacks than golf and herbology is ethics. Darn it now. Would you just do the right thing: ask what your mother would think; ask how you would feel if you read in the morning paper; explain it to your kids. How about:

Get a brain

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