Maybe It’s The Flight / Uncertainty

Is it harder than it’s ever been to trust your own intuition?

If I want to write a blog and have its title split in two, like a song with two parts buried deep on an album, will the connection between the two make sense? Does it need to? I’m on a flight as I write this (a redundant statement if I leave the title as it is) and I was reading an excerpt in the paper from Freddie Flintoff’s book. He talks about as he’s got older he has developed an understanding that sometimes you need to let go in order to be the best version of yourself. Letting go doesn’t mean letting go of your determination, but letting go of your fear. Giving yourself the freedom to try to succeed with every part of you. I guess the uncertainty comes with not knowing which part of you the fear belongs to.

Maybe I should reframe the first question as this: is it harder than ever to not question things? Most of all, yourself?

Have thoughts you want to make sense of? Just write. But now; what’s the point if it gets lost in the twitter algorithm? Does that matter? I wrote instinctively in the past when I thought it reached no one. Then my instincts (amongst other things) derailed my career and the lines that connected my intuition to my beliefs about myself blurred so violently that I’m still trying to rewrite those, never mind nonsensical blogs that may or may not mean something to someone somewhere. But if I write and no one tells me its any good does that mean I shouldn’t be doing it?

Part of getting older means you don’t get as much feedback. Things – success and failure – feel more black and white, even while there are more shades of grey than have ever existed before. The relationships you have and the money you make. An opinion on something has a direct bearing on beliefs about something else. The world shouts this at you with mocking disinterest; only willing to listen if you shout something, anything, louder. If you do something better. If you achieve something more. When you’re younger – or maybe just the world was a little softer – it feels as though it cares more. There might be more failures, setbacks, doubts and indecision, but if you’re on the right path, there will be a stream of positive feedback. Teachers, coaches, pathways. From people who naturally hold authority over you to the environment you find yourself creating and participating in. Success and failure feels far more relative, and feedback is perhaps connected to your determination and desire.

Now? If I write, who is it even for? What if I’m no longer doing the things that made people want to read in the past? Who am I to consider my thoughts worth sharing? Did I care about that in the past? In a world where everything is accessible, is privacy the only thing we have left? Why give more away?

If I want to go and practice? I used to go and putt for an hour early Saturday mornings before a nine hour round trip to watch Newcastle play. (Maybe that was more to do with how bad we were then and putting providing me a brief restless satisfaction, before a protracted dissatisfaction bordering on despair 300 miles north). Now? The football is far more enjoyable, but I’m also just as likely to look to an Eddie Howe press conference for something that might reaffirm my beliefs about practicing effectively than to actually go and do it. Because now… the question of why I’m doing any practice session that I’m doing holds so many more layers than it ever did before.

Is this going to push me? Does this fit with my beliefs about how “practice” as a principle works? What are those beliefs? Where did they come from and do I trust them? Could this have unintended consequences? Is this feeding my overall identity as a golfer or is it a quick fix? Am I only doing it because anxiety tells me I need to be doing something? Am I tired? If I am genuinely tired does that matter? Will the benefits of this practice outweigh the consequences of it making me more tired? (I’m exhausted just writing that paragraph). The only question that really matters, simply, is always, “is it making me better?”. And in a world where unverified information and trusted feedback are often disguised as the same thing and often hiding behind one another, the answer is not as simple.

But it isn’t always that complicated. And I still love it, all of it. I love just going out and playing. I love pulling off shots that you’re not really sure are wise to hit but you do it anyway. I love knowing a putt is in the second you hit it. I love overcoming things that I never could have even had nightmares about, even if it’s as small as walking off a long par 3 with your ball still in the air because you know it’s going to finish 20ft away, when the previous year you thought you were going to have to walk off that same tee and off the golf course entirely, because you couldn’t see a way to get the ball within 20 yards of that green. I love watching the Ryder Cup and seeing players able to make extraordinary things look ordinary, because the hours of practice and skill level and personality traits and captaincy have all combined in this cauldron of adrenaline to make them able to. That’s what I love about golf. The dizzying and often chaotic mixture of ingredients that can create a calm only you can feel in the midst of it all.

(Uncertainty is a song by Bryson Tiller I listened to for most of the flight I wrote this on… and it isn’t a song with two parts, but it’s from an album with two names. So maybe it was the flight, maybe it was the song. Maybe it’s going to a tournament where I’ve felt every end of the emotional spectrum; a tournament where my beliefs about myself have brought me success and satisfaction, but also distress and disillusionment. Who can be certain….)