Anyone for tennis?

Well, well, what a strange world it is. It turns out that Andrew Agassi, winner of six Grand slam tennis competitions, did not like tennis. In fact, he hated it “with a dark and secret passion”. This, and more, we learn from his new autobiography. He admits to having taken drugs, but then so do a significant proportion of top sportsmen sadly. But surely we want our heroes to enjoy playing the game we admire them for? For Agassi, it was his domineering father who caused him to hate the game that earned him millions. After winning his first Wimbledon championship in 1992, his father simply said to him “You had no business losing that fourth set!” In retrospect, no wonder he looks in tears as he bowed out of the game in New York a couple of years back. Tears, it now seems, of relief.

  It made me wonder how many people do enjoy their jobs – or rather every part of their job. I am reminded of a wonderful character in the sitcom “Hi De Hi!” – the Punch and Judy man who hated children. You can probably think of other examples. The popular Sunday evening drama programme, Doc Martin, is based on several doctors who cannot stand the sight of blood. Agassi is not alone then in hating the very gift that brought him money and no small amount of fame. Kenneth William’s loathing (his word) for the Carry On films only became known after his death with the publication of his diaries. And not just the films – for most of his life, he hated acting too. He hated learning lines (which is something of a handicap if you want to go on stage, I would have thought). “Another day yawns ahead of me. All that is in my mind now is the way to commit suicide” he wrote in 1981.

  So perhaps this Guardian blog is not far off the mark:

  “Of course, in real life it's no secret that everybody hates their job. You might say there are bits of it you like: facing fresh challenges, closing a deal or placing a finger over one nostril and aggressively "vacating" the other one into the swordfish bisque ordered by the drunken party of six in the pinstripes. But generally we assume people who like their jobs are either unhappy in some inconsolable way, or perhaps the kind of Christians who are just generally well-disposed towards everything, and who at first fool you into thinking they actually like you and maybe you're going to be great friends, until you realise it doesn't count because they have no choice, so you just feel cheated and hostile instead.”

  “The kind of Christians…” Well, I can think of some ministers I know who do not particularly enjoy preaching, and others who have an aversion for knocking on the door of that acidic church member who never likes what you say, Mrs McTavish and her rabid poodle which she seems to have trained so sink its teeth into ministerial ankles. Me, it was dealing with the church flower rota ladies I used to dread. Oh yes, and Christmas.

 Or to be more precise, Christmas Day. Now Boxing Day was wonderful, but by then I would be a blob on the carpet after the usual mad round of Christmas services, and if anyone asked me to sing “Hark the herald angels” one more time I would tell them where to put their halo. But then enjoyment is not the name of the game, is it? Contentment, yes. But as Charlie Brown said, life is not a series of ups and upper-ups. There are moments when all of us feel down.

 “The kind of Christians…” Do they exist, these people of permanently cheerful faith who enjoy everything and meet every day with an Hallelujah and never, never a teeny weeny grump and muttered expletive?  (If they do, send them to Mrs McTavish down the road – she’ll soon wipe the same off their face!) The point is, we have no right, no God-given right, to enjoy every blessed minute. That’s why the bus poster campaign earlier this year by my humanist friends missed the point – the byline, Now stop worrying and enjoy your life asks too much of anyone. Worrying is part of life. Give me contentment yes, and a certain peace – the peace that sustains me when I knock on the door of that quarrelsome church member, or suffer a hundred renditions of “Hark the herald angels sing!” piped into shops and restaurants long before Christmas Day has dawned. Or as Kenneth Williams would say, before Christmas Day has yawned. Andre Agassi, you are not alone. I could do with some of your millions though just to sweeten the pill.