Mental Toughness at Sixty

Any tennis player worth their salt will tell you tennis is a mental game. If I'd realized that in the beginning I would have probably thrown my racket off the Forth Bridge. The Forth Bridge is in Scotland. It's huge and red and worthy of a dramatic gesture. I would imagine many sets of golf clubs have been hurled into the roiling river below.

I'm more accepting of the situation now.

'Mental Toughness' is a frightening phrase to those who doubt they have it. Tennis has taught me, however, we all have this elusive quality; we just have to understand how it manifests itself, grab hold and remember the feeling. Because for sure the bugger will slip away when it is most needed.

Tennis is too important to me not to harness this toughness. I haven't completely cracked it yet. But my efforts now more resemble a Doberman Pinscher than a Golden Retriever. In other words, I internally gird my loins and snarl, rather than roll over with a soppy grin waiting for my tummy to be tickled.

Even if you don't play a demanding sport, it's important as you age to engage your mental toughness. Notwithstanding, many of us have it "thrust upon us", like Shakespeare's greatness. The older you are, the more slings and arrows accumulate. Aging, by definition, requires mental toughness. Body parts don't work as well as they did. Sometimes this happens suddenly. As in when you are in your cardio class and the tiny amount of pee that star jumps used to elicit, turns into your favorite white water rapids. Or, another rite of passage, the only way to get out of a chair is with an huge exhalation which you hope just comes out of your mouth and not the other end.

And another thing, you are starting to become redundant. Not sure there is anything more disgruntling than your educated opinion going unheard. By sixty, you are becoming irrelevant. The world is for the youth, which is as it should be. No one wants a bunch of wrinklies dictating how the youngsters should behave. We can't anyway because we are woefully behind the tech curve. I mean, a blog?!