Sometimes, I find packing up my NutSac for a round incredibly hard. I stand there, surrounded by stacks of plastic, with an unexplainable urge to take one of each disc with me for my round.
If it’s windy, I’ll need my Justice. And maybe my Harp. If I’m bringing the Harp, I should probably bring it in two plastics. And what if I need something that fades just a bit less? Yeah, I should bring a recycled Pure for that. And maybe the GL Pure too in case of a tail wind approach. The madness goes on like that for longer than I care to admit.
It’s almost painful to limit myself when there are so many options staring back at me. Each one convincing me of its value. Each disc telling a story of a possible missed shot if I don’t bring it. They can be so persuasive!
But it’s not the discs, is it? It’s me.
My mission this year is to simplify. Simplify my life in every respect, including my disc golf game. What I realize in this first week of January is that it’s not going to be as easy as I thought.
I know it needs to be done. I see the value. I’ve bought in to the concept. So much so that you will probably get tired of hearing me talk about it here on the blog. Simplicity will be the lens through which most of what I do (and therefore write about) this year will be viewed.
It’s frustrating when something as seemingly simple as picking only 6 discs to play a round with becomes such a big challenge. Even after I’ve picked the discs for my round, I spend the drive to the course second guessing myself. When I search for the reason, the answer is ironically simple.
We like complexity.
We are good at it. The explanation of why has filled up more than a few doctoral thesis’. I’m not going to attempt to explain it here. But I’m not sure it needs explaining. Maybe it just needs to be named. Maybe it just needs to be called out and recognized.
Maybe all we need as our first step on the road to simplicity is to recognize that we have been conditioned to crave the opposite. We’ve been convinced that if it’s not convoluted and difficult, it must not be worthwhile. It’s beyond our grasp that simple, straight forward solutions can even work in the first place.
[tweetthis]Sometimes simple really is better.[/tweetthis]
It should be obvious by now that I’m never just talking about disc golf. Disc golf is a microcosm of the rest of our lives. How we approach our game reflects how we approach everything else. Have a problem on the course? You can probably find that same problem off the course too.
As we move through our daily lives, we need to be aware of this addiction to the complex. And it is an addiction. Any addict is going to spend a good deal of time justifying why they are addicted. They are going to rationalize. They are going to make their case that what they are doing is reasonable.
So as I pack my NutSac, I have to be aware that yes, I can make a great case for carrying more than 6 discs. I could come here and write very convincing articles about the need to carry a Dave Feldberg style bag on every round. And on the surface it would make sense.
On the score card, it would not.
So I ask you. No, I challenge you. Look inside your bag. What are you carrying that you don’t need to? What things can you leave behind? What things can you do without? Do you really need them, or have you just become so good at justifying them that you’ve convinced yourself right along with everyone else?
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Was really enjoying your cart reviews so i could choose one and drag it around the many courses I plan to play. Then I ran across this! I’ve already started simplifying other areas of my life, such as apps on my devices, and it made sense to make a push to do the same thing with my discs. When I was rehabbing my shoulder, I carried 4 discs I didn’t have to throw hard and found that I kept up pretty well with my playing partners.
My Nutsac will be in my hands on Monday. I’ve got 8 discs picked out that will go in the Nutsac and those are what I’m going to throw this year. I may cycle a few in and out when I find I can’t make some of them do what I want, but never more than 8. My only disclaimer is the GBO when I’ll pull out a bigger bag to cover the unexpected!
You and I are thinking exactly alike. I just sent out in my last newsletter my plans to play the entire year with only my NutSac and 7 discs (although I’m thinking it may end up at 8 like you). I’ll be writing several posts about this soon as part of a larger series on building the perfect disc golf bag.
Maybe I’ll run into you at the GBO this year. I’ll probably have the Delta with me if you see me playing, but it will still just be those 8 discs with a few backups in case of loss (I lost 3 last year at the GBO, 2 on the same hole!).
Thanks for the comment and good luck! Make sure and post back with your progress with the simplified bag!