For those who didn’t watch the Masters (or a newscast in the past 12 hours), Bubba Watson won the prestigious golf tournament yesterday. Upon winning, he was overcome by emotion. His mother came out onto the eighteenth green and they hugged while Bubba broke down in tears. He had tears in his eyes throughout the entire celebration of his victory. It was clear how much this win meant to him. I felt really excited for him even though I don’t know hardly anything about him (other than having the coolest name on the PGA tour).
Somewhere in the television coverage of the event, the announcers made a comment about how Bubba has become pretty popular on tour both with fans and with other players. One of the reasons they cited for his popularity is that he “wears his emotions on his sleeve.”
The display of emotion is compelling. It’s probably because we don’t see it all that often. We are taught for so much of our lives to control our emotions. Don’t lose our temper. Don’t get too excited when something good happens (because it might be temporary, or we might hurt someone else’s feelings who isn’t as fortunate). Never cry at work (or, for some men, anywhere). Giggling is inappropriate. These lessons starts early in our lives, keep your emotions under control. And, I suppose, that’s generally decent advice that is provided with good intentions. Emotions can cloud our judgments and make us do uncharacteristically silly or careless things.
But, we are emotional beings. We get happy and sad. We laugh and cry. And the display of this emotion is a universally understood part of being human. So, why not allow a bit more of it to show. Even anger and frustration is compelling because it’s a display of our “humanness.”
I’m not sure what the message of this blog post is today. Maybe it’s just to allow ourselves to feel and display a little more emotion. Emotion is what makes us human. And, it’s the one truly universal language we speak to one another.