Tiger Woods & Invictus
December 11, 2009
Did you hear that Tiger Woods is appearing today on the Oprah Show? He’s going to sit with Oprah, unveiling his broken tooth and facial lacerations as well as his shame, grief and remorse as he tells us EVERY detail of EVERY transgression, then, if all goes as planned, he’ll ask his wife, his family, his mistresses, his fans and all of us, of course, for forgiveness. THEN, Elin will be brought on from backstage and we get to listen as she cries, and perhaps briefly, hopefully (fingers crossed) rages at him and eventually agrees to, if not forgive him right on the spot, then to at least try. She’ll try. But don’t forget the 80 million.
Then maybe if we are lucky, he’ll jump on her couch as Oprah throws to the camera for a commercial break.
Actually this is not really happening, I was just teasing you. Please tell me you did not run to the TV just now. But you must admit, it does not seem like such a ridiculous next step.
Do you think we would all feel better for having every morbid detail? Hmm, for some reason I don’t think so.
One word comes to mind:
schadenfreude-[shahd-n-froi-duh] noun-
satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.
According to Wikipedia, a New York Times article in 2002 cited a number of scientific studies of schadenfreude, which it defined as “delighting in others’ misfortune.” Many such studies are based on social comparison theory, the idea that when people around us have bad luck, we look better to ourselves. Other researchers have found that people with low self-esteem are more likely to feel schadenfreude than are people who have high self-esteem. If this is the case then we Americans must rank as some of the lowest esteemed people on the planet, because we sure are gleeful about Tiger’s whole mess.
We’ve all been whipped into a schadenfreudian frenzy as more and more girls tumble out of his one little fender-bender. Those of you who have never cheated and/or been cheated on by someone that you love and/or who loves you, feel free to throw the first dumbbell.
I have a better idea for all of us. Go get your kids right now and drive to the nearest theatre and watch the newly released movie “Invictus” with Morgan Freeman and the newly hunky Matt Damon
http://invictusmovie.warnerbros.com/
It’s the story of Nelson Mandela’s attempt to heal a country’s racial rift. Many critics have panned it but after two weeks of listening to the unraveling of Tiger Wood’s marriage and life, hearing about radical forgiveness is like balm to my golf club battered ears.
The film’s title is taken from a poem I’ve never heard before by William Ernest Henley, who was left disabled after about with tuberculosis of the bone. It goes like this:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Mandela used this poem as a source of inspiration and strength when he was at his darkest times in his 27 years of imprisonment.
It reminded me of the importance of developing discipline, discipline of the mind, whether it is in the gym, alone with the Doritos, at work or perhaps with a flirtatious co-worker behind the water cooler.
My husband’s advice to our kids about about athletics has always been that practice is discipline in motion. This is true for many things, especially exercise. By getting on that treadmill or strapping on those Easy Spirit walking shoes every day you build the character-strength of discipline. It takes mental fortitude to DO things we do NOT want to do, like exercising or flossing or carpooling and in the inverse way, (listen up,Tiger) it also takes strength to NOT do what we DO want to do, like when we need to STOP eating or STOP drinking or STOP ….doing what Tiger was doing.
So go see the movie and feel your heart open to the life-changing power of forgiveness. Remember the words of my minister Hillary Bercovici, “Forgiveness is not earned. Forgiveness is given.” and then make a vow to stop following the Woods family tragedy and leave them in privacy to find their way to some form of forgiveness.
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