It Was Always in the Swing

The joy lives in the doing, not the done. The meaning hides in the practice, not the prize. The sweetness was never in the trophy.

Thank you for listening!

Take this reflection into the silence, and I'll see you next time.

Sign Up for Weekly Deep Dives

Transcript

The Claret Jug gleamed under the lights. Scottie Scheffler, one of the world's best golfers, had just conquered the Open Championship. Thousands cheered. Millions watched. And in that moment of supreme achievement, he felt the rush, the culmination of a lifetime's work.

"It feels like you work your whole life to celebrate winning a tournament for a few minutes," he would later confess to reporters. "It only lasts a few minutes, that kind of euphoric feeling."

The man who worked his entire life to reach golf's pinnacle discovered what the Yogis always knew. The sweetness is not in the trophy. It's in the swing.

Scheffler's confession reveals our collective delusion about success. "This is not a fulfilling life," he admitted, speaking of professional golf. "It's fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment, but it's not fulfilling from the deepest places of your heart."

Here stands a man who achieved everything he dreamed of, only to ask: "What's the point?"

The Bhagavad Gita teaches that we have the right to our labor but not to the fruits of our labor. Scheffler stumbled into this truth through lived experience. He loves the work itself. He calls himself "a sicko" for enjoying the practice, the grind, the daily refinement of his craft.

But the wins? "It's going to be awesome for about two minutes, and then we're going to get to the next week."

What saves him from despair is love. But not love of achievement. Love for the work itself. Love expressed through daily gratitude with his wife. He thanks her for caring for their son, she thanks him for working hard. Love that makes him declare he'd quit golf instantly if it threatened the relationship with his family.

Yogi Ramacharaka describes that “a man lets the creative impulse of the All Life flow through him, and he does great things—he accomplishes, and is happy in his work and through his work.” Scheffler embodies this accidentally, beautifully, confusingly.

He admits he doesn't understand why he wants to win so badly when winning brings so little joy. He practices with savage enthusiasm yet questions why he bothers. "Why do I want to win this tournament so bad?" he asks. "I don't know."

That very confusion—that blessed not-knowing—is where wisdom begins.

The joy lives in the doing, not the done. The meaning hides in the practice, not the prize. The sweetness was never in the trophy.

It was always in the swing.