Resilience in the Arena: Lessons from Rory and the Mid-Am

So I had written a whole meditation on Spring and the surge of new life that is so inspirational and hopeful this time of year. Spring is magical. But then yesterday happened and I just felt like all of the platitudes about the rebirth of fresh new green shoots coming out of winter dormancy felt more cliche, less revelatory.

Yesterday, was the start of the amateur tournament golf season in Oregon. It was also Sunday at the Masters. And because it was such a phenomenal triumph for Rory McIlroy and his team, I just couldn’t pass up this moment to capture some thoughts around resilience and the way humans take themselves into almost impossible dreams. Why do we chase things that seem nearly unattainable?

While I certainly didn’t want to miss the epic Sunday at the Masters with the historic moment pending for Rory, the golf calendar here in Oregon had the MidAm qualifier landing on the same day. And as I started the day at zero dark thirty to get ready for the event, drove an hour and a half each way to get to the tournament site, faced bracing winds and cold and all of the torturous nerves of tournament play, I found myself asking a pretty obvious question: “why the hell do I do this to myself?”

When they asked Rory about how he felt at the start of day yesterday he said he couldn’t eat, he felt nauseous, nervous, legs were jelly, and all of the typical physical symptoms of the pressure of performance. It’s a universal human experience when we face the moment of performance, nerves and fear kick in. We all know this. We love to watch other humans as they bump up against this challenge and when they find a way through the fear and persevere, the triumph and the emotion in that moment of victory is profound. The truth is that this primal need to overcome adversity, face our fears and emerge victorious is our way of feeling alive and tapping in to a sense of deep joy and accomplishment. This feeling is singular to any task, event or endeavor that carries that charge of impossible odds and incredibly complex emotional landscape where our mind and body mastery is exposed and raw.

Yesterday, in the crucible of a silly local golf tournament, I had to face all of the mental and emotional forces that we have to endure when we leave the comfort of our day to day and enter the arena. As I said to myself on more than one occasion, “I’m too old for this kind of shit,” I simply put one foot in front of the other, steeled my resolve and continued to work through the task one shot at a time. In the end, I came out with a qualifying score of 77 and will head back to Oregon Mid Am in May for another round in the ring. And the feeling that I had at the end of the round was a deeper sense of accomplishment than I have felt in quite some time.

And just as we finished the round, we were able to hurry to the lounge at the club and catch the last few holes of Rory’s historic victory. When he finally sank the winning putt and he fell to his knees, that emotional outpouring was one of the most pure expressions of complete and total relief that I have ever seen in sports. It was completely transcendent. He was so overwhelmed by the surge of emotion that he literally couldn’t support the weight of what was moving though his body and he had to fall to his knees. It was so pure.

I think the conscious decision to enter an arena with a dream and a vision that may seem out of reach is a deeply human desire. It is where we feel alive. It is where we push against the weight of gravity and all of the limitations that we have to endure. We don’t always achieve the goal, but the pursuit and the on-going challenge is the gift. The word that was used over and over again yesterday to describe Rory’s performance was “resilience.” It is the quality and skill that might be the most important to develop as a human being. Without it, we will inevitably get stuck on the side of the road unable to continue the journey. So this week’s mediation is about resilience and the relentless task of entering the arena with a dream and a willingness to fight for that dream over and over and over.

Have a great week. Your task is to find a new goal that gives you the knot in the stomach and the shaky legs and put it into play on your personal goal sheet and keep working that resilience muscle. Keep pushing. Keep striving. Keep dreaming big.