Open

by Andre Agassi

I’ve internalized my father—his impatience, his perfectionism, his rage—until his voice doesn’t just feel like my own, it is my own. I no longer need my father to torture me. From this day on, I can do it all by myself.

When you know that you just took the other guy’s best punch, and you’re still standing, and the other guy knows it, you will rip the heart right out of him.

I wish I possessed some of my father’s rage. I wish I could tap into it during tough matches. I wonder what I could do in tennis if I could access that rage and aim it across the net. Instead, whatever rage I have, I turn on myself.

Every time he beats someone, he points to the sky. He thanks God—credits God—for the win, which offends me. That God should take sides in a tennis match, that God should side against me, that God should be in Chang’s box, feels ludicrous and insulting. I beat Chang and savor every blasphemous stroke.

If I’m a returner, he’s a reworder. First, he redefines the problem as a negotiation between me and the world. Then he clarifies the terms of the negotiation.

He says it must be bizarre to have strangers think they know me, and love me beyond reason, while others think they know me and resent me beyond reason—all while I’m a relative stranger to myself.

There’s a difference between a plow horse and a racehorse. You don’t treat them the same. You hear all this talk about treating people equally, and I’m not sure equal means the same.

Somewhere up there is a star with your name on it. I might not be able to help you find it, but I’ve got pretty strong shoulders, and you can stand on my shoulders while you’re looking for that star. You hear? For as long as you want. Stand on my shoulders and reach, man. Reach.

I can’t promise you that you won’t be tired, he says. But please know this. There’s a lot of good waiting for you on the other side of tired. Get yourself tired, Andre. That’s where you’re going to know yourself. On the other side of tired.

I was thunderstruck, dazzled by her understated grace, her effortless beauty. She looked, somehow, as if she smelled good. Also, as if she was good, fundamentally, essentially, inherently good, brimming with moral rectitude and a kind of dignity that doesn’t exist anymore.

In the end Lewis tells his students: Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. He tells them: We are like blocks of stone … [T]he blows of His chisel, which hurt us so much, are what make us perfect.

You know everything you need to know about people when you see their faces at the moments of your greatest triumph.

My father is what he is, and always will be, and though he can’t help himself, though he can’t tell the difference between loving me and loving tennis, it’s love all the same.

This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting value or meaning. This is why we’re here. To make each other feel safe.

This is why we’re here. To fight through the pain and, when possible, to relieve the pain of others. So simple. So hard to see.

If you’re going down, OK, go down, but go down with guns blazing. Always, always, always, go down with both guns blaaazing.

Andre, he says, some people are thermometers, some are thermostats. You’re a thermostat. You don’t register the temperature in a room, you change it. So be confident, be yourself, take charge. Show her your essential self.

Jaden, if you ever feel overwhelmed with something like I was tonight, just keep your head down and keep working and keep trying. Face it at its worst and realize it’s not so bad. That will be your chance for peace.

Someone says later that I sounded as if I’d had a near-death experience. More like a near-life experience. It’s how a person talks when he almost didn’t live.

Even if it’s not your ideal life, you can always choose it. No matter what your life is, choosing it changes everything.

I enjoy that sense we all seek, that knowledge we get only a few times in life, that the themes of our life are connected, the seeds of our ending were there in the beginning, and vice versa.