Taking a Swing at Fear

Of all the pieces that I read in Smith's Monthly #3, I learned the most from the one I expected the least from.

Though I played golf with my dad while I was in high school, I haven't had a good deal of interest in the sport for some time. Even when I was playing, I wasn't that focused on it. My fondest memory on the course was hitting the golf cart of my dad's buddy when he teased me about not being able to hit the ball very far. Satisfying, yes, sportsmanlike... not so much.

So I wasn't very much interested in the section of the magazine giving golf advice, "The First Tee Panic: And Other Very Real Golf Stories." However, I'm a compulsive reader. It takes a lot to make me stop reading a book or skip an article in a magazine. So I read it. The golf advice wasn't particularly interesting to me, but it was presented in an engaging manner.

And if I hadn't read it, then I never would have read the lines that are still turning around in my mind. "Fear is a part of the game of golf, as well as in life. Learn how to play with fear, and how to use it."

Fear is a tool.

The idea that there is nothing to fear but fear itself only diminishes and shames the feeling of fear. Rather than rejecting fear as a valid emotion, here Smith suggests accepting the fear and using it. After meeting him, I had thought to start trying to up my fiction game by actually writing again. But I found myself still in fear.

I was afraid to continue the story that I'd started back in February. For no reason I could explain, I just froze up when I thought of continuing to write it.

But after I read that line, that piece of advice about golf... I went ahead and finished it on Tuesday. I had fun with it. I let myself play with the idea and write the story without getting in my own way.

When a fire is raging in the woods, it is a danger. But when fire is a torch in your hand, it is a tool. A light. I took the fear in my hands and found a way to use it to illuminate my story.