Getting Karma On Your Side
My world is really divided, and on Sunday, I found out a little bit more on just how divided it has become! I was out on the East Coast visiting my aunt, uncle, and cousin. We had a great time, but I had more plans to see one of my best friends from high school and college. I was really looking forward to the meeting as it had been twelve years since the last time I’ve seen his face.
Things in my life are kind of split up… It’s a bipolar life for a bipolar person, as I have coined before after a meeting with a friend of mine in Brooklyn. You see, I went off to boarding school in 8th grade and ever since that time, over twenty years ago, I have had a world that is kind of all over the place. I’ve always had a home in Chicago, but many of my closest friends and friendships lie elsewhere on the globe, especially on the East Coast. This means that when I get a chance to travel East I try to catch up on the world I have been forced to leave behind. This year and in this visit I found it more challenging than ever before as my world outside Chicago feels as if it is dissipating.
On Saturday of this week I hiked a mountain, played cribbage (a card / board game), and ate with my family out near Attitash (the ski mountain). It was really enjoyable. So enjoyable, in fact, that I decided to get really drunk to celebrate my mini vacation. I drank a bunch of beer and a drink called Pearsecco, which seems kind of cheap but is astonishingly tasty. I stayed up with one of my cousins late that night knowing full well that revelry was as early as seven in the morning with my mom. We were to head into Boston where I had plans to meet up with this old school friend of mine.
It started on Saturday night. The tears and the ongoing sadness really consumed my mind. I didn’t sleep that night. I got out of bed at six o’clock and packed my things. When I met up with my friend in Boston the melancholy feelings I was having really started to spin out of control. I couldn’t stop crying. I told my friend that I was having breakfast with, that I wasn’t that sad or unhappy I just couldn’t stop crying. I was ripped in half over how my world on the East Coast was falling apart. But it was falling apart for all the right reasons. My friends were growing up, moving on, and starting their next phase or leg in life. I was happy for them, but sad that I wasn’t right there with them. I’m always having to start over and it feels as though I will never get to phase two of my journey in life.
More important than any of this is what took place at the beginning of my meal out at the breakfast restaurant with this buddy of mine. Once the meal was served, my buddy asked if I would join him in a prayer. I was shocked. This kid had grown faith. I was happy to pray with him… More than happy! I told him that I was really religious too. I don’t pray, and I don’t talk about my religious beliefs with others unless it is addressed. I was, however, able to talk through my tears about what my friend believed in. I didn’t waste time, right after the prayer I told him that I was religious, but I was a big believer in Karma. Karma is a big deal for me. I explained my belief in Karma quite simply. ‘You believe in God, right?’ -’Sure,’ my friend responded… Really I think he believes more in the notion of a higher power than any figurehead. No matter, I told him that the law of physics is that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. ‘You believe in God, well than the equal but opposite reaction is Goddess’ ie. Karma. And I truly believe in both entities.
Now I know what you must be thinking. What does this have to do with golf? Obeying Karma on the golf course will make you a better player. It will make you strengthen your demeanor, respect your playing partners, rake the bunker edges up, toss your tees off the tee box, and much much more. Karma will mess with your golf game and ultimately make the game enjoyable to the point where you can’t help but want to play… even play it alone. The game is truly a game against yourself, but on every round you must come face to face with the Goddesses even if you do not know it… Believe it and have faith in it because it will only help!