Category: Life’s challenges

An overwhelming longing

I burst into my house. Breathless – for I’d run all the way home from school – I asked: “Has it come yet?”

“Sorry, nothing has come.” My Mum looked so sorry for me. “Perhaps tomorrow.”

Upset, disappointed, hurt, sad. Another frustrating day. I’d entered a national competition, knew I’d won the prize of a great camera, and I so wanted it to arrive. Today’s conversation as I ran into the kitchen was exactly the same as it had been for two months, ever since the competition finished.

The hard truth, though, was that I didn’t know that I’d won. As much as a ten-year-old boy could be, I was sure that my entry was the best, and, the more I told myself that, the more I was certain I’d won the prize.

After another two weeks of her boy running home only to be disappointed, my mother cracked. She wrote to the company who’d run the competition, saying her son was waiting anxiously to know if he’d won. The reply came just a day or two later. They were grateful for my entry but, no, I hadn’t won the top prize. In fact, I hadn’t won any prize. I was devastated. I had so longed for that camera.

Since that time, I don’t think I’ve ever been consumed about any prize or product. But I have known numerous people with overwhelming longings of many kinds.

I’ll describe some of those I’ve known who so longed for something it was almost crushing.

Top equal in my list are those who couldn’t imagine life without being married. Most were women, but men too. I felt for all of them. I’m married, so I knew to be careful with anything I said to those who were unwillingly single. Once – just once – I was bolder with a young lady who told me almost any man would do, because she just wanted a husband. That was so unwise, I said gently that it was better not to be married than married to a bad person. She didn’t agree. “If I was married, I’d at least be able to change him.” She was wrong, but I didn’t tell her. She wouldn’t have believed me, and there was nothing to gain.

Just as passionate were those who longed for children. Some were never in a lasting relationship, married or not, but wanted children. Others were married but remained childless. Since I had four children, I never claimed to know how they felt. But I was certainly aware of their overwhelming desire to have children. For example, in my church tradition, we don’t baptise children but do have a thanksgiving/dedication ceremony for little ones. One lady asked me to stop referring to those babies as ‘gifts from God’ because God wasn’t giving that gift to her. Another requested that we gave advance notice of child dedication events “so I can avoid coming to church that Sunday”. Another young woman had more of a longing for children than for a husband – if she hadn’t got married before she was 30, she told me, she wouldn’t wait any longer but find a man willing to impregnate her. I didn’t scold her. She needed a listening ear and only a few gentle words, not a judging voice.

The passion for some is to reach the top in their career. A lawyer, by then in his early thirties, told me he was utterly bored with contract law. It was a safe and profitable line of legal work, but neither exciting nor satisfying for him. “Why stick with it?” I asked, for he could retrain for other legal areas or even change careers completely. “Because, if I keep devising lucrative contracts I’ll soon be a partner, eventually a senior partner, and could get right to the top by the time I’m 50.” Was career tedium a price worth paying for that goal? An oil company executive realised when he was 45 he’d never achieve the top job. “If you aren’t on the second highest rung by your mid-40s” he said, “you know you’ll never be chief executive”. In his case he was right, but had to keep working knowing he’d fallen short of his ultimate ambition.

There have been many more with deep longings. I’ve spoken with athletes who, despite years of sacrifice and iron discipline with diet and exercise, know they’ll never get to the Olympics or win a world record. Other people have always wanted to own a luxury car like a Porsche or Ferrari, but have never had nearly enough wealth. Some simply long to be famous, but have no idea what they’d be famous for. Others want to tour the world but – though possible – they never get round to saving the money or reserving the time for such a venture.

Ambition is good. So is the passion necessary to fulfil ambition. But when a longing becomes overwhelming there are dangers. At one level that’s disappointment; at a deeper level it can mean damage to our inner self.

So, some care is needed. Here’s why.

First, being realistic, not all goals can be attained by everyone. Everyone can’t win the prize, or hold the world record, or get the top job. That’s just simple logic. And, sadly, not everyone will find a life partner or be able to conceive children. “Why am I the unlucky one?” is the obvious question. Sadly the only answer may be “Why anyone?”. Some things are not about deserving. Other things are not about achieving no matter how hard we try. In a whole variety of ways, this is a tough world.

Second, not all goals are worthy of extreme passion. My desire as a ten-year-old to win that camera had got blown out of all proportion. There was nothing wrong with my hope to get the prize, but that hope had become a longing that was affecting everything else I did. Whenever any longing consumes us, we’d be wise to stop and consider what’s happening. The deeper the longing, the harder that is to do. Ideally, we’d all have a good friend whose wisdom we’d listen to.

The deeper the desire, the harder it is to cope with disappointment. That sentence is not an argument against sincerely longing for something good. It’s only a caution that the greater our desire to achieve a goal, the more difficult it is if we don’t achieve it. For some, that failure can overwhelm the rest of their lives. When, as a late teenager, I started a career in journalism, my ambition was to reach the very top in the newspaper or broadcasting worlds. With the brashness of youth, I had no doubt I could achieve that. But I was able to let that ambition go because an even greater goal came along, one central to my growing faith. But what if that other goal had never happened? What if I’d got stuck in a routine journalism career? How would I have coped? I’ll never know, but I did see journalists weary with their work, never progressing, never fulfilling the ambitions they’d had as teenagers. They were not happy people.

We need caution about what drives our lives. How realistic is that ambition for us? Are we passionate about something truly worthwhile? Can we cope if our dreams are never more than dreams? An overwhelming longing can be a great asset. It can also become an unbearable burden. Be careful.

When less is more and more is less

I sat opposite ten sober-faced interviewers who would decide whether I should be the next minister for their church. They asked their questions; I answered as best I could. Remarkably that committee recommended me for appointment. Why was that remarkable? Because they probably didn’t hear most of what I said. Earlier that day I’d developed a serious throat infection, and almost lost my voice. My answers to that committee were a near-inaudible whisper.

Perhaps they did hear a little and they liked that. And perhaps they never heard the rest, which they might not have liked. It turned out that less was more, and more would have been less.

Less is more and more is less in many areas of life. Below are six examples to explain my point.

When saying more might complicate matters

Near the end of an important hearing in front of a government body, I was about to speak again when I was dug sharply in the ribs by the lawyer alongside me. “Don’t say another word!” he whispered. The ruling was going in our favour, and the lawyer knew I might add information that could cause hesitation. I shut up. Minutes later the verdict we wanted was announced, and the meeting ended. “No-one ever objects to what you don’t say,” the lawyer told me later.

That is not a licence to omit vital information; just advice not to add anything unnecessary. Less is more.

When staying longer might be unhelpful

I’ve been a hospital patient several times because of back problems. I enjoyed getting visitors, but often did not enjoy how long they stayed. More than one must have imagined that, since I was going nowhere, their company through most of an afternoon would cheer me up. It didn’t. Instead, those visitors wore me out. Once they’d stayed more than an hour, I learned to plead that I needed to sleep. Yet, all too often, as one long-staying visitor left, another would arrive. Visiting times did not improve my health. More time visiting was definitely less benefit.

The same would be true when visiting the elderly, or interrupting someone’s busy day. For many years I worked from home, and Arthur, who lived nearby, would call at the door, saying “I’ve nothing else to do this morning, so thought I’d chat with you”. Arthur was a good man, but his casual visits were not helpful. Less, not more, would have been better.

When talking longer might reveal ignorance

From time to time I would let someone else preach. But I wasn’t always wise about my choice of speaker. With some, the congregation’s interest was over ages before the sermon was over. The problem with others was that they preached beyond their knowledge, by which I mean their theological knowledge. Martin would start well into his subject, make some good points, but then progress to ideas for which he had no foundation. Listening from the pews, I’d start praying that Martin would not drift into outright heresy. Thankfully, he’d usually stop just short of a complete distortion of the Bible’s teaching. But the lesson for me was ‘Don’t ask people to do what they’re not capable or competent to do’. Martin needed to speak only on the safest of subjects, and even then impart less rather than more of his own thinking.

When talking more reduces impact

One of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War was at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in July 1863. On November 19th, on the site of the battle, an official dedication ceremony took place at the Soldiers National Cemetery.[1] The main speaker was President Abraham Lincoln, and his speech is widely regarded as one of the most influential in American history. He began this way: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” [2]

From beginning to end Lincoln focused his listeners on what really mattered. But from that beginning to its end his speech was only two minutes. It consisted of just 272 words. Every phrase, though, was moving and significant. Another speaker addressed the crowd for two hours. Which speech was remembered? Which speech had more influence? Less really can have more impact.

When writing less might get an article or letter read

Britain’s World War II Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, frequently pleaded for “short-windedness”. In a written appeal to Cabinet colleagues he demanded “brevity”. That note had only 60 words. He complained that “Cabinet Minutes are much too long” and should concentrate only on decisions. He called “Whitehall jargon a waste of time”.[3]

A war-time leader like Churchill simply did not have time to read lengthy reports. That’s true for many today. People I know are so put off by a long article they don’t read it at all. My friend edited our church magazine, and consistently reproduced the entirety of lengthy letters from missionaries. Most church members never read them because paragraph after paragraph of text was off-putting. But the editor kept reproducing those letters, convinced every word from a missionary was valuable. Those letters were valuable, but valueless to those who wouldn’t read them.

When you’re writing a love letter, make it as long as you like. In most other cases, writing less, concentrating only on key points, is much more appreciated.

When eating less might be healthier

The National Library of Medicine advises that, on average, a woman will maintain her weight eating 2000 calories a day, and lose weight eating 1500 or less a day. For a man, the equivalent figures are 2500 and 2000.[4] Sticking to that allowance was impossible when I ate out at a steakhouse where several main dishes would each give me over 3000 calories. If I’d added a dessert and a speciality coffee, I could have gained over 4500 calories from just one meal. Would that meal have left me feeling content? More likely, I’d have been seriously uncomfortable and not slept well.

I don’t mean to rant about diet, only to make the point that excess in almost anything is neither healthy nor rewarding. Some have said the 11th Commandment should be ‘Thou shalt have balance’, but that can be as difficult as the first 10 commandments.

Having written this much about less is more, there’s only one thing to do. Stop.

[1] Now called the Gettysburg National Cemetery.

[2] The most accepted version of the whole speech can be read here: https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm

[3] These examples and more can be found at: https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/churchills-call-for-brevity/

[4] This and much more fascinating information about caloric intake available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499909/#

What shoelaces can teach us

My right shoelace was a little loose, so I bent down and retied it. Much tighter; much better. I walked on. In less than 20 steps I felt my left shoelace was now loose, so I bent down and retied it. Much tighter; much better.

As I walked on, I realised my left lace had felt completely fine until I tied my right lace more firmly. Then – only then – did my left lace feel slack. Because the right was tighter, the left felt loose, which caused me to fix it too.

My shoelace ‘experience’ reveals something interesting.

It’s this: often we decide something is right or wrong only when we compare it to something else. Studying an alternative makes us rethink what we are already doing or already have. It’s the comparison which causes us to make changes.

Here are several imagined examples:

  • Before putting my house on the market, I compare its value with the prices paid for similar homes nearby. They sold for a lot more than I first thought mine was worth. My hopes rise and so does my sale price, as I adjust it to equal what was paid for the homes of my neighbours.
  • I start at university, not sure where to go, which lectures never to miss, how to go about assignments. But I watch other students, see what they do, and I match it.
  • I am content with my salary, but then discover that others doing similar work get paid much more than me. I am now discontent, and demand that my boss gives me a raise.
  • I think my house décor looks great, but visit a friend whose home is so beautiful it could feature in a home design magazine. Now I feel my home is inadequate, and call in a designer.
  • I prepare a wonderful meal for visiting friends – beef stroganoff. They tell me they enjoyed it, and invite me for a meal in their home. They serve salmon en croute – cream cheese and dill beautifully encased in light puff pastry. It’s magnificent. My beef stroganoff no longer seems special. I enrol in a culinary school.
  • I love my car. It’s comfortable, reliable, and though not fast it gets me where I want to go. Then my neighbour buys a top of the range Porshe. The leather seats are luxurious, the technology mind-boggling, the engine purrs before roaring into life when he pushes the accelerator. I fall out of love with my car.

Several of these examples are about envy, and I may write about that another time. But envy is not the key point here, which is simply that we adjust our behaviour when we encounter contrasting behaviour. Sometimes we know we’re doing it; sometimes we don’t.

However, changing what you do in the light of what someone else does or possesses requires caution.

First, realise your point of comparison may be poor

For a couple of years I worked in a large open-plan office where Jean also worked. Jean was clearly a good staff member. Very efficient in all she did. In one respect, Jean was super-efficient. I’d walk past her desk after she’d left for the day, and the top of her desk was completely bare. No in-tray or out-tray. No stack of folders. No pile of to-do notes. No stapler, no pens, no paper clips. Not even her landline phone. The desk surface was completely empty. Jean had put everything, literally everything, away in drawers and cabinet. It was impressive.

Many blog posts ago I wrote about two visits to friends. These people did not know each other, but they did have something in common.

Noreen showed us round her modest-sized home. Everything was neat and clean, very neat and very clean. There were no stray cups or plates lying around the kitchen; in the bedroom no clothes strewn over a chair and no overcrowding of the wardrobe; no cushions out of place on the sofa in the lounge. We had to ask: ‘How do you keep everything so perfectly in place like this?’ Noreen’s answer was simple: ‘If I buy something new, I remove something old.’ That’s why her wardrobe and chest of drawers would never overflow. It was hard not to admire Noreen’s ruthlessness.

At their invitation, we visited Chris and Sally just one day after they moved into a new home. I’d protested we shouldn’t visit so soon, but had been assured it would be fine. It wasn’t just fine; the place looked like a show home. Nothing was out of place. At a quiet moment Sally gave away the secret. At the old house, Chris hadn’t allowed a single item to be packed for removal without it being labelled exactly where it was to go in the new place. On arrival, the removers opened the boxes, and laid each item down where prescribed. That’s why, when we visited next day, there were no unpacked boxes, no unhung pictures, nothing lacking a location. It was all perfect. Wasn’t that wonderful?  (Both stories originally at https://occasionallywise.com/2021/06/12/how-we-caused-a-plague-of-frogs/)

Jean, Noreen, and Chris provided amazing examples of organisation and tidiness. But:

  • At the end of each day Jean used 15 minutes of work time stowing away all her desk top papers and tools, and at the beginning of the next day another 15 minutes retrieving them.
  • Noreen’s ruthlessness eventually got the better of her. She didn’t control her super-orderliness; it controlled her. It became a compulsion, which sadly led to a broader mental breakdown.
  • Something similar was happening with Chris. He couldn’t function without everything being exactly in its right place. That actually made him inefficient, wore down relationships with others, and was one reason his marriage failed and career ended.

Not for a moment am I criticising habits like tidiness. My sole point is that we may encounter traits or practices in others which, initially, we find admirable. The contrast with what we do is stark. My only minimally organised desk looked so cluttered compared to Jean’s swept-clean desk. At the time I thought ‘I should do what Jean does’. But in fact I shouldn’t. Half an hour of work time spent presenting a clean desk wasn’t what my employer wanted. And Noreen and Chris paid a high prince for their super-organised lives. I shouldn’t emulate them either.

Every person or object we initially admire does not qualify as an example we should copy. Perhaps your modest vacation doesn’t look like much compared to someone else’s lavish cruise, but your bank balance and the environment may thank you for your choice. A bad comparison is no guide to right behaviour.

Second, every comparison we reject doesn’t justify our own behaviour

What if I was speeding down the motorway at 80 miles per hour, feeling a little guilty because the limit is 70 mph? Suddenly a car roars past me. It’s going far faster, almost certainly around 110 mph. “Now that’s really bad ,” I say. “At least I’m not going that fast.” No, I’m not. But my 80 mph is still wrong and risks an accident. Because someone else’s actions are worse doesn’t make mine good.

I played golf in the company of Colin who, to use an old phrase, ‘swore like a trooper’, perhaps because he had been a trooper. Whether from childhood or his years in the military Colin had developed extremely crude language habits. His swear words outnumbered clean words in almost every sentence. He put me off my golf, and probably spoiled his own game. I was used to fellow-golfers who uttered the occasional expletive when they hit the ball out-of-bounds, or missed a short putt. Colin’s appalling language was in a class of its own, a very bad class. Yet that didn’t make it okay that others only used the ‘F’ word sometimes. Their language was better than Colin’s, but still fell short of ideal.

Contrasting our behaviour with someone else’s worse behaviour doesn’t make us good.

When I was a boy my friends and I would jump streams. The challenge was easy when the width was only two or three feet. We could all jump those streams. Next we’d find a place where the gap was five feet. We all managed that too. And then the gap was eight feet. Tommy was great at running and jumping and he cleared it easily. Freddy was not so fast, and slipped as he jumped. He flew only about four feet before plunging into the water. Useless. Then it was my turn. I ran and jumped to an excellent distance. But six feet wasn’t excellent enough for an eight foot gap, and down I fell into the water. I was better than Freddy, but just as wet as he was.

The point is obvious. We see someone doing less well than we are, and feel good about our attitude, our ability, our accomplishment. But contrasting ourselves with someone who is worse doesn’t prove we’re okay.

In our thinking, speaking, acting our point of comparison should be doing what is right and good. What someone else does is, in a sense, irrelevant. The standard isn’t being better than others. The standard is being the best we can be.

Third, maybe nothing needs changing

The final lesson from my shoelaces is very simple. When I’d first tied them, both shoelaces were adequately tight. Yes, as I walked I realised one was tighter than the other, but neither was loose. Both were holding my shoes on my feet perfectly well. Nothing needed changing.

Years ago I read a review of hi-fi equipment. Hi-fi is short for high fidelity, and audiophiles, the people who seek the purest reproduction of sound, invest a lot of money to buy the best. They want no ‘noise’, no distortion, and the ideal frequency response. Having put two h-fi systems through a battery of tests, the reviewer reported that A was fractionally better than B. But, he added, the difference was measurable only in a laboratory. In the real world situation of a music system in the home there would be echo from walls, absorption of sound by carpets and furniture, and extraneous noises such as from passing traffic. Add to that humans have a limited hearing range. “The honest truth,” the reviewer wrote, “is that you’ll never hear any difference between these systems.”

We compare what we have with what someone else has. Or what we can do with what another can do. Then we feel we must get the other thing or be like the other person.

Maybe we do, but maybe we don’t. Perhaps what really matters is being content with what we have and what we’re able to do. Life won’t be significantly different by making a change. Most likely both your shoelaces are already adequately fastened.

If you’ve found this blog post helpful, you’d likely also enjoy others from the archives. For example, have a look at these:

The left-handed ironing board  https://occasionallywise.com/2022/01/01/the-left-handed-ironing-board/

When the right thing to do is nothing at all  https://occasionallywise.com/2021/01/30/when-the-right-thing-to-do-is-nothing-at-all/

Inner peace  https://occasionallywise.com/2023/07/15/inner-peace/

And, please think of sharing any of these with others who might appreciate reading them. Thank you.

The tyranny of the perfect

My golf match reaches the final hole with scores tied. Whoever wins that hole wins the match. My pitch to the green leaves the ball just six feet from the hole. If I sink the putt I win. I read the line, determine the speed, place my putter behind the ball, and stroke the putt toward the hole. It rolls straight and true. Until just six inches out, when the ball curves left and misses.

We played an extra hole and I lost. Afterwards I felt so stupid to have missed that putt on the 18th green. It was only six feet. I could and should have holed it. But I didn’t.

But the odd truth – which I discovered later – is that many of the very best golfers in the world might well have missed it too. The American PGA Tour publishes statistics for all their top golfers on putts holed from various distances, including from six feet. Some players are remarkably good, like Brian Harman (who won the 2023 Open Championship) who holes 91.53% of six foot putts. But others, including the biggest names in golf, are nothing like so good. For example, Jon Rahm (winner of the 2023 Masters Tournament) holes only 58.57% of times from six feet. Almost half of the top 184 sink less than 7 out of 10 of their six foot putts.[1]

If highly skilled golfers often miss relatively short putts, why did I beat myself up because I missed a six foot putt?

The answer lies in what I call the tyranny of the perfect. I don’t compare myself to my fellow amateurs, not even to highly rated pro golfers. I think I should be the perfect putter. I should always hole a six foot putt.

The truth is that no-one always does that, but, foolishly, I think I should.

That’s the tyranny of the perfect. It persecutes me in all sorts of ways – imagining I should always be patient, always be generous, always work hard, always excel in every task, always appreciate what others do, always want to wash the dishes, always be happy to walk the dogs in torrential rain. Of course I’m not always any of these things, so I feel bad.

Unquestionably I should always aim to be the best, to think, speak, and act correctly. But I have to come to terms with the reality that I won’t always be that good.

I’ll set down a few ways to think about this:

  • three negatives about perfectionism
  • two examples of when nothing less than perfect will do
  • finally a brief theological point

Perfectionism creates anxiety

Years ago I began work on a PhD with the University of Edinburgh. I’d already graduated in theology there, so I was on good terms with the faculty. One senior professor took me aside early on in my research work. “Alistair,” he said, “don’t be afraid to submit a chapter when you’ve done the work. There will always be more you could do, but you need to move on.” I owe that professor a lot. He was so right. I made steady progress through that degree, always knowing there were more books or journal articles I could have read, but accepting they wouldn’t have changed the direction of my research. But a perfectionist couldn’t have done that. The perfectionist would worry in case one more article might yield an important insight. And then there would be another article, and another, and another. Always anxious in case something was being missed.

Perfectionism causes inefficiency

My wife, Alison, remembers a near neighbour she once had. He was a keen gardener, so keen he worked endlessly on removing stones from his land. But his task was indeed endless – there were so many stones he never got round to planting his flowers and vegetables. Perfectionism made him inefficient.

The same was true for my friend Gordon who researched his doctoral thesis for five years without submitting a single chapter. His problem? He couldn’t let go of his work because he never saw it as finished. After six years he was warned about his pace of progress. The same happened after seven years, and eight years and nine years. He had drafted chapters, all excellent, but he kept refining each one. After twelve years Gordon got a final ultimatum from his university – ‘submit your thesis within the next academic year, or you get no degree’ – and after thirteen years he handed in his work. It was far better than acceptable; quite brilliant really. He got his doctorate. But he’d have been awarded his degree in a third of the time if only he hadn’t been a perfectionist.

Perfectionism forces people to become absorbed in detail to the detriment of getting work done efficiently.

Perfectionism limits performance

A figure skater practises and practises, and at last masters a quadruple Lutz. She focused on the quad Lutz because it’s extremely difficult and therefore one of the highest scoring elements. (The base value of a single Lutz is 0.60. The base value of a quadruple Lutz is 11.50.) Our skater worked up from the single Lutz to double Lutz to triple Lutz, and finally – after years of trying and failing – she succeeded with the quadruple. Surely our skater must now win every competition? But she doesn’t. Yes, she can pull off one of figure skating’s hardest jumps. But she has so concentrated on her quadruple Lutz, she’s neglected the Axel, the Loop, the Flip, the Euler, and the Salchow, important other elements in a figure skating routine. With those she’s just average. And being brilliant in one element but only average in the rest doesn’t win. Her perfectionism with the quadruple Lutz has limited her potential.

Likewise, cricket teams have specialist players, mostly bowlers and batters. But cricket teams don’t consist only of specialists. Other players are all-rounders, people reasonably good with ball and bat, but also excellent at catching, throwing, and running. Teams need players with many skills, not just one.

In life generally, most of us have to be all-rounders because focusing only on one thing neglects everything else. Perfectionism can limit performance.

However, having listed three negatives, I can offer two positives about perfectionism.

Perfectionism is sometimes essential

  • If I was ever to make a parachute jump – which will be never – I’d want my parachute packer to be an out and out perfectionist. Someone who thinks a ‘nearly right job’ is good enough might kill me.
  • If I needed brain surgery, my neurosurgeon had better have dedicated everything to be utterly brilliant. I don’t care if they can’t make a cup of tea, tie their shoe laces, or stack a dishwasher, as long as they’re an exceptional surgeon.
  • If I was trapped beside a ticking bomb, I’d need to know that the technician working to diffuse the bomb is the best bomb disposal operator ever.
  • If I was strapped in for a space flight, and the countdown has reached 5-4-3-2-1, I’m praying the aerospace engineers who constructed the rocket are the most detailed and careful people on earth.

You get my point. There are situations where it’s exactly right for someone to pour their attention and skill into just one area of work. In certain circumstances precision is an absolute requirement. – perfectionism not just desirable but essential.

Perfectionism is the inevitable instinct for some

I attended a Scottish Open golf tournament in Glasgow in the early 1980s. All day I walked the course, admiring the players’ skill. Finally, with the light fading, I headed back to my car. Right beside the car park was the practice range. There was only one player there – Nick Faldo. He was young but already well known. He’d played in several Ryder Cup matches and topped the European Order of Merit. He was already a successful golfer. But, while others had left the course or were propping up the bar, there Faldo was on the range. The sun was setting, but he was still practising. A great golfer, dedicated to becoming an even greater golfer. Which he achieved. He went on to win dozens of tournaments, including six ‘majors’ – the Open Championship in 1987, 1990, 1992, and the Masters Tournament in 1989, 1990, 1996. That’s more ‘major’ victories than any other European player has achieved since World War I. In the 1990s he was first in world rankings for a total of 97 weeks. When he finally retired from tournament play he began a significant career commentating on golf, and took up many other enterprises related to golf course design and developing young golfers. In 1998 he was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire), and then made a Knight in 2009, both awards ‘for services to golf’. Therefore he is now Sir Nick Faldo.

But his single minded devotion to golf came at a price. During matches he was so intense he hardly spoke to opponents or playing partners. He’s been described as having an insular focus that peers found less than endearing. That focus didn’t help his marriages either. The first lasted less than five years, the second for nine years, and the third for five. Faldo married his fourth wife in 2020.

Faldo’s great success as a golfer owes much to his perfectionism. It has cost him, but Faldo probably never considered any other attitude to golf. Utter dedication to his sport was how he had to live.

Similar commitments exist in other areas of life, such as:

  • the person building a corporate empire that spans the world
  • the academic whose whole existence is dedicated to study and book writing
  • people who dedicate themselves to finding rare species of moths, or trek the world as ‘twitchers’ (bird watchers)
  • those who commit all their attention to their families to the exclusion of any other activity.

Such people don’t have ‘interests’. Their goals are far more intense. Their focus is narrow. They could never be all-rounders. And their dedication to being perfect makes them very good in a single sphere.

Finally, then, a brief theological point.

Jesus said: ‘Be perfect… as your heavenly Father is perfect.’[2] That’s the standard. We shouldn’t aim for anything less. But, realistically, our lives will be less than perfect. Thankfully, the Bible also says: ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves… If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.’[3]

So, when we don’t get things right, there can be forgiveness. For which I am profoundly grateful.

But sometimes the biggest difficulty is forgiving ourselves. That was my problem after missing my six foot putt. ‘I should have holed it’, I kept telling myself. I measured my performance against a perfect performance, and fell short. That’s the tyranny of the perfect. Yes, let’s always aim for the best. But let’s accept we’ll often fail. That’s realistic. It happens even to people far more proficient than we are. Sometimes we need to seek forgiveness from God or from others. And often we need to forgive ourselves. If we don’t, the perfect will keep on tyrannising us.

[1] Season 2022-23 statistics from https://www.pgatour.com/stats/detail/344 There are many other similar statistics on other pages on the PGA tour site.

[2] Matthew 5:48 (NIV)

[3] 1 John 1:8-9 (NIV)

This way or that way?

I saw the sign in my photo on a nearby golf course. One arrow pointed left to the 13th teeing ground. The other arrow pointed right to the 13th teeing ground. “Which is it?” I asked myself. Both directions couldn’t be correct. Or could they?  Intrigued, I took the photo. (An explanation of the sign is in a footnote.[1])

It’s not unusual to be uncertain which choice to make, which way to go, which option to prioritise. Sometimes the decision is trivial. Do we watch this film or that film? Do I have a latte or cappuccino? Do I go shopping today or tomorrow? Sometimes the alternatives are much more serious. Who do I share my life with? Do I study law or accountancy? Should we move abroad or stay here? With life changing decisions, the stakes are super high. It’s difficult and often stressful when we could go one way or another, and it’s not obvious which way is right. So much rides on the choice we make.

No-one has a perfect method for making the uncertain certain. But here are three guiding principles.

Rationality can’t always tell us what’s right

We should be careful about making choices based on hunches or emotions. One couple were convinced a house they couldn’t really afford was perfect for them, so they bought it, but within months had to sell it because they couldn’t make the payments. That was foolish.

However, not  every decision can be resolved by calculation. We can’t always weigh the merits and demerits of one option over another. Jeff decided he needed a wife, so he wrote out a wife-specification: age, looks, family background, education, career expectations, role-of-wife assumptions. He found Julia, an attractive young lady who ticked every box on his list, dated her, and they got engaged. And then they broke up. Jeff and Julia were well matched, except for one essential: they weren’t in love. Emotion had been left out of the calculation.

As Jeff and Julia’s story shows, the rightness of every important decision can’t be defined by rational analysis. Top executives have been quizzed about their strategic decision making. Often they had folders or files full of data, but when the crunch came their final choice was based on a hunch. Some wouldn’t call it a hunch. They preferred ‘instinct’, or ‘intuition’, or claimed ‘inspired guesses’. However they described it, their final decisions were not data driven.

Faced with a ‘this’ or ‘that’ decision, rationality may not give us a clear answer. But, deep down, we may know what’s right. That inner voice shouldn’t be ignored.


Alternatives are not always the problem we think they are
When I’m making a long journey, I use digital mapping to plan my route. Usually I’m  offered more than one way to the destination. One option may take me via a motorway, and the other a more direct route but on minor roads. I can’t go both ways. Which is right? I could spend ages making a decision. But I don’t. Because often there’s no more than five minutes difference or a couple of miles in distance between the two. The simple fact is that I could go either way. The choice doesn’t really matter.

The same can be true with matters more serious than route selection.

When I’ve interviewed candidates for jobs, the final stage has often been a choice between two people, either of whom could do the job well. The significant point then is what I’ve just stated: ‘either could do the job well’. I can only employ one, so I must choose. But that choice is between good and good; neither is bad. Whoever I pick, I’ll be getting a great employee.

The same applies when I’ve got several things to do. Which should come first? Several clammer for my attention, but all that matters at that moment is that I start on one. Which one isn’t really important since all of them have to be done.

I’ve seen people in a restaurant almost unable to decide on their main course, asking their server to give them another two minutes, and even after that needing ‘a little longer’. What’s their problem? They can’t choose between the beef or the lamb. Do they dislike one? No, the problem is that they love both. They’ll enjoy either. Unable to decide, I’ve been asked to choose for them. So I do, and they’re delighted – as they would have been if I’d chosen the other dish.

So there are two truths there:

  1. We too easily think every choice is between good/bad or right/wrong. But alternatives can both be good. Either option will be fine.
  2. Because we’re frightened of making a bad choice, fear paralyses us. We’re stuck between option A or option B, terrified of getting it wrong. That paralysis leads to option C which is no decision at all. And that’s usually the worst option of all.

Sometimes there’s no big difference which choice we make.


Consider how urgent any decision is

There are decisions which must be made right now. You can’t tell applicants for a job you need another month to make up your mind. Or, if you know you want to buy a house, you’d better not put off making an offer.

But other decisions are not like that. I felt the time had come to buy another car. I read up on several models, took test drives, studied finance deals, talked to salespeople. Rather than narrowing down my options, that process so enlarged my thinking I was confused. Several models seemed equally good, and I’d likely be happy with any of them. But, with a significant sum of money involved, I struggled to make a decision. Then I realised I didn’t need to buy any of them. Not at that time. The car I had already was old with high mileage, but it was running okay, still doing what it had always done. Since I had a functional car, I could wait. (Which is what I did, and two years later, with clearer thinking, I bought a car that delighted me and gave good service for many years.)

Here’s the lesson. We shouldn’t put off a decision that needs to be made now. But not every decision has to be made now. Not everything is urgent. And when we don’t know which option is right, it’s legitimate to wait. That isn’t procrastination; it’s simply saying ‘not now’. With time, the fog of uncertainty may have cleared, or you may have found an option you’d never considered before. Now you can make a wise choice, and that’s the time to act.

So, in conclusion, we may wish every decision to be clear cut. No confusion. Make the choice and move forward. But the hard reality is that some choices are not plain and obvious. We could go this way or that way. It’s not easy, but I’ve given some clues for how to move forward. Decisions may involve instincts rather than analysis. The differences between options may not matter too much. And perhaps that urgent decision isn’t actually urgent at all.

[1] The left arrow pointed to the white and yellow teeing areas of the 13th hole. The right arrow pointed to the red teeing area, also of the 13th hole.