The Endless Fight
Sometimes we have to fight tirelessly to reach some sort of satisfaction, I have two examples which prove this fact. It can be rewarding. The endless fight.
‘Winning might not be the result, but growth — that’s something to be excited about.’
I’m reminiscing on my first internship on the eve of my next.
But the events of today during golf led to a seemingly similar tale about fighting to the end.
Even if you’re unsure what the end will bring.
The two examples come from both golf and Harold and his English improvements during my first internship.
Both are applicable, relevant and have interesting perspectives to the idea of perserverance.
Firstly, today.
Today I reunited with Ted and Sam.
Sam I haven’t seen since last year and Ted since I left the UK for Fort Worth.
We played a game of ‘skins’.
The objective of the game is to accumulate the most number of ‘skins’ to be crowned the winner.
Sam received a shot per hole to weigh up the standard disadvantage over Ted and I.
If the hole was halved between two or more people, with no-one shooting a lower score, then the ‘skin’ rolls over to the next hole.
This can lead to all players vying for 7 ‘skins’ on one hole to restart the total on the next hole.
It can become quite competitive.
It did today.
Ted didn’t have a good day. I won’t say much more than that.
That left Sam and I to battle it out.
With three holes left, I was three skins down.
I needed to win or halve all the holes to go to a sudden death hole.
I pulled my tee shot on the par 3 16th but had a good line on it, Sam foolishly tried to play funny and underclubbed himself.
He made a 5 and I miraculously made a par 3.
Two down. The intensity was firing up. Ted a mere bystander encouraged Sam to beat me. It was the same old story with Ted.
Sam makes a meal of the 17th and a simple par 4 leaves me one back going into the 450-yard par 4 finisher.
Sam smokes a drive down the middle and I pulled it into the trees.
After a topped second shot, I played my third to within 10 feet of the flag.
Sam, on the other hand, lost his ball and had to rely on Ted (not a good idea today) to half the game.
I won the hole and halved the match.
An extra hole was to be played.
I felt relief and I was somewhat satisfied that I had successfully comeback.
Sam was widely unexperienced compared to the seniority I had in matchplay.
He’s a good player, stable, from his handicap and that’s why he won the final hole and the contest in the end.
It proves, however, the strength of being fearless and always believing in yourself.
I knew my capabilities and I knew Sam’s insecurities.
I used both to capitalise on the situation.
I hope he can do the same as he continues to play golf and improve.
The second story relates to Harold.
Harold is someone I’ve spoken about before.
I tried to take him under my wing and help him with his English.
He is a native Colombian who has travelled to the UK for university.
We worked at the internship at Canary Wharf together where I edited his social media posts.
Now, he has set up his own social enterprise idea called LaOtraColombia.
You should check it out and contribute if you’ve ever been to Colombia, I know he’d appreciate it:
I remember when he would write posts and they would be in the wrong sentence structure, word order or grammar.
It slowly improved to a point where he could write coherently and without editing.
He still makes mistakes (like we all do), but now he can spot them for himself unassisted by others.
Learning to perfect another language is one of the hardest tasks.
I commend him for his perserverance.
We find things in life that are particularly hard.
We find that we are going in circles.
But that’s the point.
To get so lost that we only want to find the finish.
I want to win.
I want to succeed.
But I must settle for compromise when others outperform me.
I expect Harold to send me his publications error-free and in more distinct style than my own one day.
I expect Sam to make headways and get to single-figure handicap, beating any opponent in his way.
I live by experience.
I try to help others understand my experiences through words.
The reason I write is to articulate my experiences for a future self to spectate and wonder.
The fight will never end, but at least it will be full of great people and even better stories.
The endless fight.