How an Argument Can Change a Part of Life

Wladimir Collineau de Meezemaker

English 080, T/R – 8.20 pm

Sept 8, 2016

How an Argument Can Change a Part of Life

“Have a goal in your life, and when you have your goal, implement to reach it all the force of spirit and muscle of which you are able”-Carlyle. My name is Wladimir and the story that I am going to talk happened in my childhood in a little city close to Paris, in France. All my family plays golf, for three generations; so it is like an obligation to play this sport if I want to stay a “Meezemaker”. The best player was my sister, who was strong, calm, and trustful; all a golfer needed. For me it was different; I was her opposite, feverish, highly-strung, and stressed; all that a golfer does not have to be. But an argument changed all my life.

At this time, golf was a punishment for me; my mum needed to force me to go at my training and it was like the hell for me. I wanted just one thing, to hang out with my friend, have a good time at home, like play video games or watch TV, like reality shows or sports; all that a young guy wants to do. “You are sure that it is with these things that you will improve your golf and be better than your sister!” She repeated that to me all the time. “be better that you sister”; “be better that your sister”, even if I do not want to be better than my sister. Golf wearied me, and I am tired about this family obligation. So because of these things, my results were really bad. The lack of training did not help me to be better, of course, and my mental attitude degraded I thought the worst than I could expect about myself. There was another factor about this bad self-opinion, handball. Two years past I had started to play handball on a team, and it was exiting. I discovered a new kind of sport, a team sport, where everyone plays a place and a role, where I win and I loose with my team, where I can find team support and a teammate help. I was so invested in this sport that my coach proposed to me than I go to a special athlete school to study sport.

But one day, I was going to my golf training and something happened. I was walking close to the putting green, and then I saw my mother and Karl, my coach, talking. “Wladimir, I need to talk with you right now!”  shouted my coach. I was afraid of him. He is a tall man, without hair and he looked angry all the time. A big argument started between him and me and our voices rose and some guys on my team thought that this argument was going to finish like a physical fight. “It is not with this golf level that you will do something in your life!” He tells me. I remember this sentence because it was the release from the life I live right now, like an electroshock. With this argument, I decided to make a separation with my coach. I changed to a better coach, younger and cool, called Clément. He was so nice and so professional. I never spoke with my old coach since what happened, never said hello or anything else. There was freeze between him and me. It was at this time that I started to want to play golf. I was on the golf course something like three time per week, having a better golf training with more time at the range and gym, I was exhausted by it, but with this trainings, I was better prepared to make championships and tournaments, better in my golf game and better in my head too, the most important part to compete with other guys. However I had to make some sacrifices to be better. The hardest, I think, was to stop playing handball. I was very sad about that, and I asked myself during something like one month to be sure that it was a good decision. The second sacrifice was to reduce my social life time with my friend, less partying, less coffee. It was not a pleasure but felt like an obligation to me if I wanted to be better.

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