article in the Times last week on Tiger Woods. For some reaason i am always facinated by insights into the weakenesses of others. i guess it helps me make sense of my own failings (or should that be makes me feel better about my own failings!)
if you don't know the story, 'the greatest golfer that ever lived' and one of the biggest earning people on the planet, has admitted to having an affair (amid lurid rumours of a whole gaggle of affairs) for which his wife beat him up good and proper. he tried to cover it up by faking a car accident, and then locked himeself away pretending no one could see him like a three year old. finally he decided to come clean, and today he has confessed to the world, asked for forgiveness and declared he is taking an indefinate break from the game of golf to sort out his private life 'I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person.'
Shocking?
Not really, maybe the shock is that he has finally admitted to being human after years putting on the show of a machine. Others have commented far more eloquently on the matter than i could, Ed Smith in the Times article says:
Woods has been fighting the imperfections of humanity all his life. Being human demands weakness, vulnerability and unpredictability; Woods has always eschewed all three. His template has been half-god, half-machine — a god to his fans, a machine to himself. Who can be surprised that he is starting to crack under the strain?
Well put, and he's not the only one who is letting it all hand out at the moment. if you follow the radio and TV celberity-interview-i'm-publishing-a-book circus you wont have been able to miss the voice/face of Andre Agassi thsi past week (Simon Mayo radio 5 tuesday, Jonathon Ross BBC1 Friday) Agassi has been telling everyone who will listen (and will hopefully buy his book) how miserable he was. Wretched in fact. apparently he hated tennis, hated his marriage, hated his father, heted well... life. and then it all turned around, steffi Graf and all.
Agassi speakes with saged clarity about himself. precient of his own feelings and particularly weaknesses. 'Be careful how you measure success' was the advice he gave one caller to a radio show. Wise words indeed.
so what about you and me? We are never likely to have the attention/fame/notoriety 'success' these guys have. We may think that our fall from grace could never be as bad as theirs. But think on that a minute - we can only measure any human rise or fall in the context of the life surrounds it. what would it feel like if your biggest darkest secret came to light? How would that affect your family, your mum & dad, your kids?
so 'fess-up guys (and girls) at least to yourself. it may be that God gave these guys success (and failure) to teach us all a lesson -at their expense - to help us all to wake up to the fact of our own imperfections. Lets deal with what we can, with ourselves, our loved ones, with those that can help us in the process. Or (possibly AND) with, as the 12 step programmes put it, the Higher Power. Surely Tiger, Andre, me and you need Him/Her more than ever?
