When the golfer notices that the euphoria of winning lasts only a couple of minutes and then “the show goes on,” many people hear something bleak in it — if it’s all futile, why bother? Joe insists that’s the wrong read. The impermanence isn’t a tragedy; it’s the doorway to freedom.
“Everything comes and goes. Like winning or losing, it all comes and goes. And so, if that’s true, then you have freedom.”
If no win and no loss is permanent, and you’re never going to get everything, then the pressure to make any single outcome carry your whole worth evaporates. There will always be a next failure and a next win, so you’re released to actually enjoy what’s in front of you instead of bracing for the next thing. The same fact that looks like meaninglessness from one angle looks like liberation from another.
“I get to actually enjoy because no matter what is happening there’s always going to be the next thing… So, it’s actually really quite beautiful.”
Related Concepts
- Achievement never fills the hole it promises to fill
- Winning feels good because you briefly stop needing the next thing
- The empty space you’ve been avoiding is the path to freedom
- Exploration not achievement is the real urge underneath potential anxiety
- Ambition survives beneath the resistance, waiting to be set free