What has emerged about Tiger Woods in recent weeks suggests compulsive behavior on the border of addiction, brought to a halt by a crash heard around the world, and now followed by recovery, personal growth and self development. In short, what Tiger did was terrible ... but media’s coverage of it is even worse. Like most people I’m curious to know, but I don’t enjoy the rancor of main stream media. Probably because I also don’t enjoy bullfights. I went to see a bullfight with my father on our first trip to Spain, way back when, thinking it was the thing to do. But instead of a fight we saw the torture and killing of an animal specifically raised for the occasion. We left mid-way through, pale-faced, stomach churning, crowds cheering.
Let’s See If It Hurts
One thing I don’t enjoy about the news coverage, is that right after an accident is not the time to tear people apart. Except in the animal world, of course, where an accident basically turns you into dinner for other animals. But we’re talking human race here. If humans come across people with broken limbs, or broken hearts, or broken spirits – do they stab them with steely knives, or help them back onto their feet? How many of us are on our feet, I guess answers the question.
Your Behaviors Are Not You
Tiger did what he did, but the Tiger Woods story is by now much bigger than Tiger himself, of course. Damage is also inflicted on the reading public that takes what the media dishes out at face value. I’m thinking particularly of the damage done by media’s portrayal of people as being their behaviors. To propagate the myth that people are their behaviors is a white lie, at best. People are not their behaviors. Your behaviors are not you. Behaviors are just that - behaviors.
“Being” – who you are – is creation’s gift to you. “Behavior” – what you do – is what you do with the gift. The gift you don’t control, but the choices and decisions about it are yours entirely (except special circumstances). To change who you are might not be possible (it shouldn’t even be attempted, quite to the contrary!), but to change your behavior can be done in a heartbeat (or in the instant of a crash). Even in cases where lasting change takes time and effort, behavioral change is definitively possible. Any child can do it. Kids change naturally as they grow up. Actors change behavior at will. You can do it, too. Remain strong in the knowledge if you change your behavior you change your life – no matter what the media says.
If you're skeptical or would like to know more, there exist systems to facilitate change, as well as specific techniques to achieve desired emotional states, such as happiness, or unhappiness if it's what you desire. Happiness is a habit. Unfortunately, so is unhappiness.
Good Choices Often Come From Bad Ones
Whether Tiger is a good or a bad person is immaterial – either way he made the very poor choices that led to what’s now likely the greatest test of his life. Unlike the media, I don’t think the test is about ex-lovers, business partners, money, golf or action. At this level of out of control, you’re being tested for survival. When you’re acting out like Tiger did, you’re dealing with delusional trance and insanity. It’s like being anesthetized during an operation - you feel the pain only after you wake up. The same thing happens when waking up from a delusional trance. For having been there done that, I don’t wish the experience on anyone, not even my enemies.
Before It's Too Late
In addition to providing fodder for the tabloid press, may “the crash heard around the world” be an example for the millions of little tigers out there still hunting for bigger and better sex, again and again, blinded by the delusion it exists. Like Tiger before them, these are people who convince themselves doing wrong is alright as long as you don’t get caught, and the best way to deal with the fact that a fool is someone who knows the difference between right and wrong, and chooses to do wrong anyway, is by pretending you don’t know. All of them may not crash their cars at 2.30 am, but all of them will crash their life and reputation at some juncture … unless they change their behavior and their life before it’s too late. I hope Tiger’s crash and my coverage of it might help to do just that.
Prevention is better than cure. Tiger had a coach to excel at golf. Wanna bet he's now adding a coach (or two) to excel at life, too? Don't make the same mistake. Hire your life coach now, before you wished you had or regret you didn't.
Relevant Quotes
- “What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy? Who buys a minute’s myrth to wail a week, or seeks eternity to get a toy? For one sweet grape who will divine destroy?” – Shakespeare
- “Why go out for burger when you can have steak at home?” – Paul Newman
- “All communication is either a loving response or a cry for help.” – A Course In Miracles
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Beat I loved how you put it – your behaviour is not you. So simple but so profound. You indeed can always change your behaviour and make it reflect more of who you truly are. You have to know who you truly are first of course. Great post, thanks!
.-= Lana – DreamFollowers Blog´s last blog ..You are NOT responsible for anything and how it can help you reach any of your goals. =-.
Hey Beat, I like what you mentioned about children and actors changing behaviour. I’m on par with what you’ve said in the way media portray information and the information we choose to absorb. I think I started writing something about this a long time ago but may never have finished it. I may have to do that now!
.-= Amit Sodha – The Power Of Choice´s last blog ..4 Years And 6 Key Lessons From Blogging =-.
Tiger Woods is a type 8 personality on the enneagram and that has led him to be dominant and compulsive in what he does.
We need to remember that he’s only human and yet at the same time, condone what he has done.
Good writeup!
Lana, thanks for your feedback and flowers. It’s very freeing to see who we are and our behaviors as together yet separate. Doing something stupid doesn’t make us be stupid :-) What inspired me initially was A Course In Miracles Quote: All human behavior is a loving response, or a cry for help.
Hi Amit, thanks for your feedback. Glad you liked the post, and if it inspired you to take action (to finish something started a long time ago), well, it’s any blog post writer’s dream :-) Cheers and good luck,
Kelvin, thanks for sharing your thoughts! As I understand it, all our personalities somehow fit into enneagrams. Personality type may indeed be what leads us to behave in the ways we do. Another way of looking at it, is to consider our basic human needs and how we go about to meet or even fulfill them. Some ways work, others don’t work for us. Tiger-type-8 personality found ways that worked just fine in one discipline (golf), but the same Tiger-type-8 appears to have missed it by a long shot – no pun intended – in another discipline (intimate relationships). How come? “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man? How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn’t see?” I’m sure by now you might have guessed, “the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.” Or in an enneagram? :-)
Hello. I really enjoyed reading this article. The lesson that I got here was reminds me of a quote from Abraham Lincoln, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” What Tiger did was shameful, especially to how devoted his wife was to him. But as long as he learns his lesson, does not repeat the same mistake, and continue to focus on playing good golf, he will be able to move on from all of this and eventually grow to be a strong person again. Thanks for this article. :)
Hi Hulbert, thanks for your encouragement. Learning, forgiveness and healing – all the more meaningful on this day before Christmas. Very merry Christmas to you!