to hit the balls into the bush, you could
see the agony in the old caddie’s face.
The others were just laughing at him as
we both went into the bush many times
to look for the balls. The poor old man
walked 2 extra kilometers because of my
detours. He suffered.
In golf, the easy bit is that, the whole
fairway is well identified with clear
distance marks in every hole in order
to guide you. So, there are limits and
milestones.
In life the first mistake we make is not to
identify our course, limits, and milestones.
What course or fairway I am going
to follow? What are the limits to that
fairway? What will help me recognize
when I am off my fairway? When you
identify and mark your fairway, get
yourself in it and start your game.
In your game, when you find yourself in
the bush, which you will often do, just try
to locate yourself and quickly get your life
back to track. In golf, when you hit the
ball into the bush, and you lose it, you
drop another with a penalty and continue
playing until the end. You don’t give up
the whole game because you’ve made a
mistake in one hole.
Some people give up hope when they veer
off their life course. They become hopeless
and hence continue staying in the bush
or getting deep into the bush, instead of
acknowledging the mistake, taking the
punishment by the chin, getting back into
the course again, and starting to move
towards their destiny.
Just like in golf, life is your game. Other
people are also busy playing their game
but might become your cheerleaders.
When you hit a good ball, they may cheer
you on. When you go into the bush, they
might come to help you find your ball, but
they won’t play it for you.
We similarly must learn to live our lives
and be responsible for it. Our cheerleaders
could be our friends, our relatives, our
colleagues, but you must hit your ball
and carry your burdens along your life’s’
fairway until the end. It’s your game.
When I played at Sigona and kept going
into the bush, I kept saying, “if only I had
hit it that way, and not that way, it could
have gone well.” When I hit another bad
one I would say, “waah, were it not for that
tree, my ball would have landed better.”
My match mate kept on listening and he
finally told me: “Herman, in golf and just
like in life, statements like “were it not
for” or “if only”, don’t help anything, a
situation is what it is, and you have to deal
with it that way because, if your Auntie
had the male organs, she would be called
your Uncle. Right? But now she is not.”
Meanwhile, let me try and improve this
game and when Corona is over, God
save our souls, we will find out how far
we have veered off from the life fairways
and we will surely get back and continue
with our life plans. We might take a little
bit longer, we might at the end have lost
many balls in the game, we may end up
working a little bit harder, but in the end,
we shall reach our destiny like anyone else.
We know this is our game and no one
will play it for us. They might cheer us
on, or offer help here and there, but it is
our game. We will deal with our current
situations not look back with statements
of regrets because our Aunties are our
Aunties and not our Uncles. Shalom!
Herman Githinji is a management
and seasoned marketing consultant
and law graduate from the University
Of Nairobi. You can commune with
him on this and related issues via email
on: [email protected].
ltd