Tiger came, apologized and left. Does it matter? Why do we care? If he were not a hugely famous athlete who slept with a seemingly endless stream of women, including many who shared their stories and bared their bodies afterwards, would we pay any attention? Of course not! But Tigers’ apology merits attention because of at least three things we can all learn about how to lead happier and better adjusted lives.
First is that entitlement is a very dangerous thing. As Tiger said earlier today, “I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled“. The idea that we are somehow deserving of having whatever we want, whenever we want it, is simply never appropriate. No matter how hard we have worked, and no matter how much we attain, there must always be limits. And when we fail to know what they are, we end up hurting ourselves and those around us.

I am not suggesting what the limitations should be in each of our lives. That really is a personal decision, even when the personal decision is to give the decision over to a religious text or spiritual tradition which tells us what those limitations ought to be. I am simply noting that a sense of entitlement was one of two root causes which tiger identified as central to his current situation and reminding us that what’s true for Tiger is true for all of us.

The second thing to which tiger returned a number of times in his 14 minute apology was the issue of personal vulnerability – how hard it was for him to admit that he had a problem and how hard it remains to ask for help from others. How often have all of us had that experience? How often have we know “all along” that what we were doing was wrong, but felt that there was no safe way to say it?
A culture of genuine accountability demands receptivity and gentleness on the part of those to whom any of us is accountable. It also requires a sense how deeply strong and good each of us is, even when we are behaving at our worst. Only through a sense of our greater strength and goodness can we overcome the fear of vulnerability to which Tiger referred.

Finally, Tiger had the wisdom to admit that repentance is a process. He has much work that remains ahead of him, but that should not diminish the enormity of taking responsibility in public for his public misdeeds. We need not have fixed the problem for which we seek forgiveness in order for our apology to be real. In fact, it’s when we think that we have “put it all behind us” that our apologies ring most hollow.
So while popular interest in most of Tiger’s previous behavior is nothing more than voyeurism combined with celebrity-obsession, I thank him for an apology from which we can all learn.