Dear Harvey,
Golf has a way of humbling and teaching us all at once. One moment, we’re flushing a drive straight down the middle, and the next, we’re knee deep in the rough, wondering how it all went wrong.
Keeping a soul balanced
Life, I’ve learned, functions much the same way. A period of difficulty shook me to my core, but during that time, it gave me two phrases that have stayed with me like familiar swing thoughts: consciously optimistic and blissfully dissatisfied. They sound conflicting, but as I’ve found—much like golf—they could be the ideal pair to keep a soul balanced.
Staying in the Game
The introduction to this series, called Staying in the Game, is here, where I discuss four ‘fractals’. A fractal serves as a metaphor for how knowledge expands. The more you investigate a subject you’re curious about, the more hidden edges and unanswered questions you will find, much like zooming into a mathematical fractal reveals endless new details.
- Fractal I: Open Spaces
- Fractal II: The Contest of Years
- Fractal III: The Gift of Restless Striving
- Fractal IV: The Circles of Teaching
- Dear Harvey: What Remains?
Consciously Optimistic
Being consciously optimistic is like standing on the tee box after a double bogey. You’ve just hacked your way out of the bunker, missed a short putt, and added more strokes than you care to admit. But then you set your feet, grip the club, and remind yourself: the next shot is still yours. It’s not naive cheerfulness—it’s deliberate, even defiant belief that better swings are possible, even after painful ones.
Blissfully Dissatisfied
Blissfully dissatisfied feels different. It’s the quiet hunger that drives you to practice putting for an extra half-hour, not because you hate where you are, but because you love the pursuit. It’s enjoying the sunshine, the company, and the walk—yet still caring about shaving strokes where you can. In life, as in golf, it means being grateful for the round we’re in while still yearning to play it truer, straighter, and wiser.
Carry Both Hope and Hunger
I’ve come to think of growth as climbing a ladder, one rung at a time. At the top, there’s light, perspective, even peace. But on the way up, you can still glance down, and sometimes you see the shadowed places where the old wounds live. Choosing optimism is what keeps me climbing; carrying a hint of dissatisfaction is what makes me keep reaching higher.
So, Harvey, life is an 18-hole round with weather that shifts, greens that break the other way, and hazards that we never quite expect. To be consciously optimistic is to step onto each tee with belief, no matter what the scorecard shows. To be blissfully dissatisfied is to keep wanting better—straighter drives, truer putts, a fuller heart—without losing sight of the joy of simply being in the game. Each round, like life itself, asks us to carry both hope and hunger in the same bag.
Yours always,
gPage
P.S. The nugget pairs well with this nugget: A different take on blissful dissatisfaction.
“Millions of people were charmed by the homespun golf advice dispensed in Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a sports classic that became the best-selling sports book of all time. Yet, beyond the Texas golf courses where Penick happily toiled for the better part of eight decades, few people knew the self-made golf pro who coaxed the best out of countless greats — Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Betsy Rawls, Mickey Wright — all champions who considered Penick their coach and lifelong friend.” – Kevin Robbins, author of Harvey Penick: The Life and Wisdom of the Man Who Wrote the Book on Golf.
