Playing Against Myself

    Throughout my whole childhood, I felt like all of my friends had "their sport." In other words, each of my friends seemed to have a natural ability for a certain activity, and they stuck with that. I, on the other hand, never seemed to find my fit. This was true until last spring, when I picked up golf. I tagged along with my dad and his friend one day when they went to the golf course. I decided to try it out. I had always imagined golf as a sport for old men and people with too much time on their hands; until I tried it. It was one of the hardest things for me to learn, and I loved the challenge. The feeling of getting better after each practice hooked me. I began practicing for hours each day, and realized that maybe I finally found my sport. I dabbled with football, lacrosse, and even soccer. However I never considered myself to be competitive, therefore I didn't enjoy athletic competition. Now? I can't get enough of it. The best thing in the world to me is being on the course with my opponents, playing my own game, and knowing that there is no one that can stop me. The thing with golf is that you compete against yourself. Not with or against a team. It's comforting for me to know that I don't have to rely on others, or have others rely on me. This takes out all variables of competition. If I played my best, I won.

This clip from the famous movie Caddyshack, pretty much sums up my writings. "How do you measure yourself against others?" the locker room attendant asks. I believe that this sentence is the problem with most peoples mental approach to sports, and is why I enjoy the form of mental torture that is my favorite sport, Golf.



Another one of my favorite things is movies. My favorite movie is Warrior. Warrior is about two brothers who come from an estranged family and end up fighting for the UFC championship. The thing I love about this movie is the passion that each brother has for life because of past events. They both work hard for themselves and their families. They go back to natural instinct which is to fight with 110% to stay alive. (Or in this case, keep their homes and support themselves.) Warrior steps out of the box of normal movies by keeping the relationships within the family very realistic. Most movies would have the brothers forgive their abusive dad half way through the movie; however Warrior makes everyone fight for forgiveness, (literally and figuratively.) Another thing I enjoy about this movie is the final scene. The final scene, however predictable, is very inspirational. Naturally, the two brothers make it to the final fight, so they must fight each other to win. The brothers were separated young, and not under good terms. Because of their estranged past, they have an anger against each other that cannot be matched. Both fight valiantly, but there must be a winner. Both cannot stand the though of losing to the other, or losing the five-million dollar purse. Once the fight is over, they walk out of the ring as brothers once again, not as enemies.

The movie makes this transition of enemy to brother very subtle. It is as if the fight enabled them to break all tension and renew their relationship. This is the last thing you see on the screen before the movie ends. Yes, it is obvious that physical damage was done, however it is clear that emotional healing is happening. This song plays throughout the whole last fight, and adds to the intimacy of the whole thing. I highly recommend watching at least the final few minutes of the movie to understand what I am trying to explain.(Warning: slightly violent.) The other part of this scene that adds to the sadness is the the abusive father who tore his own family apart, watches his sons fight over his wrong doings. In conclusion, the movie Warrior will always stick out in my mind as a favorite because of its blunt honesty and fantastic realism.



The best experience of my life? It has to be when I took a missions trip to a deaf village in Jamaica. The deaf population in Jamaica are treated as outcasts. It is very sad to see how these people are forced to live. Although America is far from perfect, this particular type of discrimination is almost gone. In the mountains of Jamaica there is an entire area where 90% of the deaf people live. We arrived at the deaf school where we would be living while the students were on spring break. This was bitter sweet. It was bitter simply because we didn't have the opportunity to spend time with the kids. However, it was sweet because we now had more time to get stuff done around the campus. We built new staircases, painted, built new sandcastles and playgrounds, cleaned, etc. It was very fulfilling to help out the people in this community. It was apparent that they were very grateful. The day after we arrived was easter sunday where we visited the deaf church. One thing that was curious to me was certain mannerisms that all of the deaf people shared. For example, none of them would use their real voices, however all would laugh. Whenever someone signed something funny, they all laughed. It seemed that laughter was the only way they could express themselves vocally. It seemed that laughing instantly brightened the moods of these normally solemn people.

This picture is of the deaf village where we stayed. It is cool to see the different things that we accomplished just in this one picture. All the fences, staircases, and paint was done by us.Overall, this trip was the best experience of my life because of the life lessons I learned and the people I met. I learned that patience can be a great virtue to all; deaf or hearing. Also that laughter truly can be a great medicine.