My high school science teacher once told me that I didn’t have a learning problem, I had a listening problem. It made no sense to me at the time and even less today. I was listening to her, I just didn’t understand what she was saying.
“Hack, did you hear me?” She would say.
“Yes I hear that you are talking, if that is your question,” I would respond.
She would stare annoyingly at me and kindly ask me to stand in the hallway until I was prepared to take learning seriously. Technically, I should still be standing in that hallway today.
I took my first golf lesson the other day and the results were as you would imagine. The coach, if that is what they are called, said to me that my angle of attack was to steep and that I should round out my swing a little more.
I stared at him.
He then told me that at the point of impact my body should be square to the target and that my legs were too stiff during my swing.
I looked away.
He went on to explain that during a round, my focus should be on one thing and that was making solid contact and to make sure the ground was the last thing I hit.
I left.
This was the kind of nonsensical drivel that drove me out of my science class in high school and reminds me why I hate learning and also why I hate golf. That’s not true, I love golf, but I hate learning about golf and I don’t like listening to people tell me how to play golf.
So I have vowed to never listen to another tip from somebody in my group. never watch another YouTube video about the perfect chip, and never under any circumstance have some guy named Larry charge me $80 to tell me my swing sucks. That is a fact.
In an unrelated note, I got an A in that science class in high school because I overheard her talking to another teacher about a “lunchtime meet-up” and thus blackmailed her.
Turns out listening wasn’t my problem after all.