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By John Maginnes
PGATOUR.com Contributor

DULUTH, Ga. -- If you see a Buddhist monk sitting cross-legged before a candle and saying, "make me one with everything," it invokes an image of peace. If a fat man at a hamburger stand utters the same words, the image is decidedly different.

John Maginnes (WireImage)

Life is about perspective. It has been said that golf mirrors life more than any other game. While I agree with that statement, I think the thought is either incomplete or all encompassing -- depending on your perspective.

At the highest level, the PGA TOUR player toils incessantly with his game, often only seeing his labor bear fruit sporadically. Even when your game is a little stagnant, you must feel that you are on the right path and doing everything that you can do to improve.

But the typical player doesn't spend every waking hour working on his game -- not even Vijay does that. Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods have both shown the ability to implement new setups and motions in their golf swing very quickly.

It is easy for everyone to conceptualize a change but it is another matter all together to actually put that change into action. Whether you are changing your grip or the routing of your golf swing, you have to change not only the physical but the mental. A feeling of awkwardness is inevitable but must be overcome.

If you have ever tried to start a workout program, or to quit one of your vices, then you know that the mental if far more difficult to overcome than the physical. Logic tells us that the easiest thing in the world should be to quit doing something like smoking. However, tobacco companies are still making billions of dollars each year.

While golf can certainly be analogous for life, the comparison is incomplete in some ways. In golf, the player creates all the action. You are in control of your own fate. Life is a little more fluid than that. Sometimes you are the bug and sometimes you are the windshield.

I think in that comparison is part of the mystery and allure of this game that we all love. Logically, if you create the action then you should control the action. Perfection is attainable In a situation where you control the action. In that impossible pursuit, we find the beauty of the game because we glimpse it on occasion.

In the perfectly struck long-iron that nestles close to the flag to the 40-foot putt that finds the middle of the hole with ideal speed, we see what is possible.

Of course, the converse is true, as well. Whatever your level of expertise, you come into rounds with expectations of some kind. Unless we meet these expectations we are unable to enjoy the round as much. Any sports psychologist worth a bag of range balls tries to get his students to concentrate on the process and not the result.

Surely, you have heard the adage, "getting there is half the fun." Obviously, that doesn't refer to waiting in the C Terminal of Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport while mechanics try to put the engine back onto the wing of the plane that was supposed to leave two hours ago.

What it is referring to is the pursuit of a goal. Some of my fondest memories in golf do not take place on the PGA TOUR. Those memories live in places like Boise, Idaho, and Texarkana, Texas, on the Nationwide Tour trying to hone my craft with the ultimate goal in mind.

Obviously, at the time I was impatient and eager to get on TOUR and make my mark. Now, in retrospect, I realize that the lessons learned about the game and life are some of the most valuable and painful of my life.

Viewing the TOUR from the perspective of analyst and reporter, I realize that the best players are the ones who adapt the quickest. They are the ones who recover from adversity without judging their foibles too harshly. They learn from their mistakes and rarely compound them.

In golf, as in life, it is rarely the first mistake that gets you in trouble. The second mistake is the one that really causes problems.