Thursday, October 6, 2011

Why So Unhappy?

Tiger Woods made his much anticipated return to the PGA Tour today, shooting a two over par 73 at the Frys.com open, a Fall Finish event.  Normally, Tiger doesn't play in the Fall Finish events, but due to injuries and poor play, he added this event to get is game in better shape before the President's Cup.

After his round, he said that he is "Not Happy" with his round.  Tiger is never happy these days.  In fact, he's generally really miserable.  I can't say that I blame him...he screwed up his marriage, his health has been a wreck and his golf game resembles mine more and more every day. 

But, at the same time, I can say that I blame him.  Tiger has lead a pretty charmed life.  He was the best golfer on the planet for the better part of 15 years.  He's won over 70 tournaments and 14 majors.  He's got 2 kids.  He's become the person he dreamed of being growing up.  So, why isn't it he happy?

Well, because there's more to life than being a great golfer.  I tend to think that Tiger got to the top and thought, "this is all there is?"  So then he tried to fill his life with other things, and it never got better.  That happens to us all when we achieve something we really want...in the end, accomplishments of this world always disappoint.  So then, like Tiger, we try to fill our lives with other things, looking for the one thing that will make us truly happy.

Maybe Tiger, and the rest of us, need to spend less time looking for things of this world to make us happy and more time looking for Jesus Christ.  True happiness can only come through living a truly Christian life.  Personally, I struggle with this every day.  But I have realized that I'm a much happier person when I quit trying to find things in this world to make me happy and realize that I should be happy with the many blessing God has already given me...such as a great wife and 2 wonderful boys.  Don't get me wrong, I still fail more often than I succeed, and I'm still somewhat convinced that a pickup will make me happy, but that's a problem for another day.

I wonder if Tiger will ever realize Who the true source of happiness really is?