Happiness Is Served Between the Lines of a Tennis Court
Learning to play tennis taught me the secrets to a better life
“…the great tennis players know…learn to do nothing with your whole head and body, and everything will be done by what’s around you.”
- David Foster Wallace
As a kid, my relationship with tennis was a rollercoaster of emotions, swinging from love to hate and everything in between.
Several nights a week during middle school, my parents would whisk me away to tennis practices on the city’s outskirts. I resented them for this. Like most teenage boys, I yearned for the thrill of late-night mischief with my friends and craved the freedom to do something other than what they told me.
Tennis was a chore, a burden to bear.
Except when I set foot on the tennis court, a switch flipped within me — I was transported to a new world. Stepping onto the court was like plugging into a live wire. I felt an explosion of electricity as if I were tapping into something cosmic. The racket wasn’t an object anymore. It was an extension of my arm, and the court was my canvas.
Despite my natural ability and strong pull towards the sport, I was still ashamed to play. Calling myself an “elite” tennis player would be…
