Almost

My golf match wasn’t going well. Shots missed the green, and putts skimmed past the hole. Doing badly on the first four or five means you won’t win a tournament of just 18 holes. Conditions weren’t easy but neither were they difficult enough to prevent others turning in great scores. I wouldn’t be one of them. I kept trying, but it was hard to focus. What was the point? My last hole was better, but that couldn’t improve my overall total. I handed my card to the scorers knowing I’d be well down the field. I wasn’t. The winners were announced. I wasn’t one, but I was only one place, one shot, away from getting a prize. If I’d holed just one more putt, I could have won. ‘Why did I not concentrate more, and try to give every shot my very best?’ I asked myself. But I hadn’t, and had to accept the hard fact that I almost won.

Everyone has almost moments. They almost passed their driving test. They almost got a promotion. They almost proposed to the girl of their dreams. They almost ran the whole marathon distance. They almost caught the bus. They almost won the lottery. They almost completed the crossword. They almost got the grades for university admission. They almost bought the best mobile phone. You could say there’s almost no end to a list of almosts.

I’ve been reflecting on how common and how significant almost moments are in our lives. Some of those moments (even a golf match) are not really a big deal, but others have a deep and long-lasting effect on our lives. Here are some of my reflections around the word almost.

Almost can torture us

I heard a talk recently from an athlete who’d placed fourth in the Olympics. For years she’d prepared for those Olympics. She’d trained hard every day, sacrificed greatly, given her best, and she almost got a medal. But she never made it to the podium, nor are laurels hung round the neck of the person coming fourth. The pain of being so near and yet so far from recognised success hurt that athlete deeply.

Almost achieving does that to us. A friend almost finished his PhD, and for the rest of his professional life regretted his failure to complete. When my brother and I were very young our parents nearly signed up for a special deal for us all to emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. They almost signed up, but doubts brought the process to a halt. Though we had a good life in the UK, the ‘what if?’ questions never completely disappeared.

I see two lessons to counter those kinds of regret.

One is that plainly not everyone can come first (or second or third). Being near to success, but not winning, is everyone’s experience in some sphere. And not being first does not mean we’re failures. To come fourth in the Olympics proves you’re better than the vast majority of athletes, and you’re fitter and faster than 99.9% of the population. (More on not being first in a moment.)

The second lesson is that we mustn’t live life constantly looking over our shoulder to the past. Whatever we once did was based on the facts and feelings we had then. Now we must move on. Hindsight is cruel, tempting us to believe some other path would have been better. But we don’t know that. The only thing certain is the path actually followed through our lives. It’s important we make the best of that.

Life will always have almost moments

All we need is logic and modesty to realise we’ll never be first in everything on every occasion. Jack Nicklaus was a brilliant golfer from his youth onwards. Over his career he won 18 major championships, three more than Tiger Woods. Almost more remarkably, he was runner-up in 19 major championships, in five of which he lost only by one stroke or in a playoff (which takes place after a tied tournament). Nicklaus almost won twice as many majors than his enduring record total. How did he cope with so many disappointments? The answer is that he’d learned early on, before he turned professional, that he’d lose far more golf matches than he’d win. He was ready for those almost wins.

I’ve known people controlled by a deep need to come first. Some become bullies. Some become cheats. Most end up disappointed, frustrated, and sad that they haven’t fulfilled their potential. But very likely they did fulfil their potential; it’s just that ‘potential’ cannot be equated with being perfect, or better than everyone else.

No-one succeeds in everything. Many times we’ll do well, but just short of our very best or someone else’s very best. Life is filled with almost moments, and we must come to terms with that.

Nevertheless we should not easily settle for almost

After an almost moment, there’s no harm in asking ‘Why did I come up short?’ Perhaps you went for a job interview but you weren’t selected. It was an almost moment, and you’re disappointed and perhaps angry. Now you have three main options:

1. Blame the interviewers for being mean or stupid. You know you were their perfect candidate, and they blew it. They asked the wrong questions. They misinterpreted your answers. They didn’t give you a chance to shine. They reached the wrong conclusion. Blame-casting like that is always a temptation because surely what happened couldn’t have been your fault. Think like that and you learn nothing. It’s utterly unproductive.
2. Of course doing the opposite with blame – blaming yourself – isn’t productive either. We think: ‘I was too nervous; I stumbled over my words; I didn’t really answer their questions; I never put over my best qualities.’ Constructive self-criticism, recognising shortcomings or learning points is fine, but getting down on yourself generates negativity and pessimism which does nothing to improve performance next time.
3. Recognise the almost moment as a near-success. You got an interview! That’s something many others did not get. You were close to being appointed. Okay, so what professional skill do you need to improve? Or what could someone teach you about interview performance? Or how might you prepare yourself better for next time? An almost experience is evidence of needing just one more step to reach the top of the stair.  

There’s much to be said for an almost moment providing we don’t see it as a disaster. Almost does not mean the world is against us, or that we’ve failed. Rather almost can be just birth pains before we emerge into an amazing new future.

Sometimes almost is actually good enough.

Perfect isn’t always necessary, and we can waste time and energy striving for it.

I was preparing a report for church members, and decided it would help to present it in a more attractive layout. Using my Apple IIe computer and Epson dot matrix printer[1] I set out text in column width. Step two was to cut out headlines from newspapers that seemed to fit each part of my report (‘Bold new start’, ‘Exciting possibilities’, ‘Better future’ and so on). I pasted the text and then the headlines on sheets of paper, making it look like a news report. Then I had all the pages photocopied. Though dot matrix printing could never look elegant, at least my report was better than plain text. Except it wasn’t really. I had taken about a day and a half to create that layout, and the church members just shrugged. They were only interested in what the report said. A neatly presented traditional report would have been almost as good, and certainly just as acceptable to the readership. And the almost as good would have saved me a mountain of work.

Perfection is not the only acceptable goal. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Almost can mean we’re near to achieving our goals

Sticking to a healthy diet is an obvious requirement for maintaining the right weight. Those trying to lose weight will often adopt a severely restricted diet to shed weight quickly. The problem is that crash diets can leave people feeling hungry, and hunger tempts them to cheat on the diet. And once they’ve slipped, many give up, saying “I can’t do this”.

I’ve done the equivalent when resolving to tidy everything in my home office. For several days I put everything away neatly. Then comes a super busy day, and perhaps another two after that. I didn’t tidy up and now I think I’ll never keep up so I give up, and settle for muddling along.

But the reality is that what we can almost achieve is evidence that we’re not far off from what we want to achieve. We shouldn’t be discouraged. We may have to change our approach, but we can get there. Yes, we slip up, but coming close shows those goals are possible for us. The exasperated phrase “I can never do this” isn’t true. We can. The best things in life require perseverance, and our almost achievements are evidence that we’re not far away from those best things.

Almost can be a good miss

Most of us will remember times when we almost made a bad mistake, but we didn’t. I almost added on two years of university study in my twenties because I’d become fascinated by philosophy, and was sorely tempted to catch up on philosophy courses I’d missed. Thankfully a friend counselled me to stick to my core studies and not lose time. He was right. If I’d deviated, I would have given myself big problems, some financial, some relational, some affecting my career.

Other people have stories about almost investing in a scheme which turned out to be a scam. Or almost reaching a road junction where a driver coming from a side road failed to stop; being at the junction just one or two seconds earlier would have meant a collision. Or almost buying something they found much cheaper later in the day. Or almost marrying someone, realising later what a mistake that would have been.

There are countless times a decision almost made would have been the wrong decision. We should be very thankful for what we almost did, but in fact didn’t.

Almost too late moments are, happily, just in time moments

On the spur of the moment, I put a question to my 79-year-old Dad: “Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?” His immediate answer was “I’ve always wanted to see the Canadian Rockies”. “Then let’s do it” I said. Three months later we were on a plane to Canada.

My Dad’s only previous experience of air travel was the one hour flight from Edinburgh to London. Now we had begun our long journey over the Atlantic. We were half an hour into the flight when he asked, “Are we nearly there yet?” I had to explain that there were several hours to go. But – in mid-Atlantic – we had a happy interruption. One of the cabin crew leaned forward and whispered, “Would you two gentlemen like to visit the Captain on the flight deck?”[2] Of course we said yes, and a minute later we were standing right behind the pilot and co-pilot. We stared out through the cockpit to the clouds, and felt almost overwhelmed by the array of dials and controls before us. I was thrilled, and my Dad doubly so because he had been in the Royal Signals regiment during World War II so understood the fundamentals of radio traffic. He enjoyed a conversation with both pilots about how messages were transmitted, and about how navigation worked.

We arrived safely in Toronto, and our few days there included a visit to the nearby Niagara Falls. Then we were back in a plane, this time flying right across Canada to Vancouver. There we rented a car and I drove Dad on a lengthy but thrilling trip through the Rocky Mountains. We were dazzled by high snow-covered mountains, amazed to stand on a glacier, impressed by the dark waters of deep lakes, and watchful for bears crossing our path. Dad returned home excited and full of stories to tell his pals. Three months later I got the phone call no-one wants. Dad had been found dead. He hadn’t turned up for his regular golf game, so his friends, with police help, broke into Dad’s house and found him on the floor. He’d suffered a massive heart attack. It was so sad to lose him. But I had one very special comfort. The trip to the Rockies was almost too late, but in fact we’d done it just in time.

It’s often true that almost too late is not too late. To tell someone you love them. To mend a relationship. To live an experience. To achieve a goal. To accomplish a long-cherished goal. While you still can, don’t settle for almost but go ahead and achieve what you’ve always wanted.

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[1] For younger readers, here’s how dot matrix printers work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing),

[2] An invitation that would never be offered to anyone now.