To hack or not to hack...

Here's a shocking development: I'm thinking of giving up golf.

Regular insomniacs who read my drivel will know how golf has been such a huge part of my life for almost all of my life. It has kept me sane and replete with friends. I have had an official handicap in single figures for almost all of my life and players who have single figure handicaps are amongst the best 1% of golfers globally.

Now however, I can barely play to 20 (which for non-golfers means I'm not very good any more) and this year, golf has been little more than a source of frustration, anger and misery. Honestly! In no other part of my life would I continue to do something that makes me so bloody miserable! That way lies madness.

So I am minded to just give it up when this season comes to an end (which is pretty much in the next week or so).

But here's the problem - golf isn't just golf, is it? It's the exercise, it's the social interaction, it's the all-round impact of making the effort to actually get out and see other people...So have I been looking at it far too narrowly?

Let me explain...

Self-confidence is fragile

When you're really good at something, it becomes part of your identity. It becomes part of how you see yourself and it bolsters your self-image. If you're good at something, it helps you balance off other things that you're not good at (or think you're not good at, things that you know you should have been better at but feel like you failed). They don't have to have anything to do with each other. For example, one might say to oneself, I'm rubbish at being an Uncle, and I feel bad about myself for that; But on the other hand, I've been very good at golf and that makes me feel better about myself.

But if you lose that thing that you're good at, it gnaws away at your sense of self, at your self confidence and the way in which you see yourself. I'm a great believer in positive thinking and the power that brings, but you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear! There has to be a basis for having some self-confidence to allow the positivity to take root. Does that make sense?

It does to me. The more that this disease progresses, the more I become aware of things that I can no longer do, and that not only undermines my self confidence, it also undermines the way in which I see and respect myself. I've been self-reliant my entire life and have deliberately set about managing my life so that I am entirely independent of everyone and everything. But all of that has been swept away in a medical tsunami and when one of the few things that I can still be proud of gets washed away by a combination of agonising pain, failing strength and old age, then (in my mind) I would be a fool to continue to put myself through that.

I've been 'intervened'!

But last Saturday, I was the subject of "an intervention" that apparently had been planned by several of my closest friends and my ever loyal and long-suffering wife.

The 'leader' of the 'intervention' was a dear dear friend (whose capacity for thinking of others is exceeded only by his dependability as a friend) sat me down and made me look at the whole picture. To care enough to actually have the "balls" to sit down and talk me through it - well trust me, I understand the depth of the sentiment and kindness behind it.

My 'intervener' made me look at the realistic outcomes if I were to give up golf.

Initially, I would promise to come up the club to see all my friends at least once a month, and I would meet that promise for the first few months. Then it would become every six weeks, then once a quarter, and then once in a blue moon, until finally, never at all. The consequential loss of social interaction would compel me to become ever more insular and would cause a catastrophic lack of perspective (even the most casual scrutiny of Psychology 101 tells us that those who have little or no social interaction develop anti-social attitudes and dangerous psychological neuroses). So there's the psychological impact to consider.

Keeping the weight off has always been a struggle for me. More so now than ever before because of a whole range of factors outside my control. And just as an aside, for those who would exhort me to more and greater exercise, I would just beseech them to watch my 10-year anniversary film when it comes out in January and then reflect on their exhortations. But if I stop playing golf, what other exercise can I do? I can't go out on my bike every single day (my arse would never forgive me!) and I could mix it with other things like going for walks and so on. But when spring and summer comes, I want to spend time working on the garden and fun stuff like that. So there's the physical impact to consider.

But when I reflect and look at myself honestly in the mirror, there is one stark reality that I cannot avoid: People are worried that if I give up golf, I will go into a downward spiral physically, emotionally and psychologically, and will be dead in 6 months.

And they may be right.

I have made my views on dying very clear and I have been very honest on this point. I am not afraid of dying and when it comes, I will welcome its warm encompassing embrace with impatient open arms. But - I will not (at this stage) do anything that will hasten it arrival either by deliberate action or by conscious omission.

Changing the narrative

But what is clear is that I cannot continue to play golf when it makes me so miserable. So maybe I need to change my own narrative?

As the intervener suggested (is someone who leads an intervention called an intervener?), perhaps I need to forget my past golfing ability (and these days, forgetting stuff is something I am world class at) and just play on the basis that I only do it for a bit of fun, and the score doesn't actually matter. Can I do that? Can I divorce myself from who and what I used to be and become someone entirely new in a golfing sense?

Can I fundamentally change my perspective of golf and laugh at bad shots instead of raging at them?

I don't know. But winter has arrived and brought down the curtain for this year's golf and so I have three or four months to make a decision.

But I know this - Because of the 'intervention' of people who love and care about me, I will think long and hard about it in the widest possible context, and not simply my own selfish frustration. If someone cares enough about me to 'intervene', perhaps I should stop being so selfish in my own attitudes. People obviously care about me and want to spend time with me - am I really going to be so arrogant and self-centred as to turn my back on that love?

I'll keep you updated on my thoughts....