Looking for a cure for stress, anxiety, gastrointestinal problems, PTSD, high blood pressure, and any number of the other things? There are plenty of articles, researchers, and possibly even friends who are quick to tell you: Meditation is the answer. It seems that every week a new study suggests meditation is the key to treating some condition or illness.

Speaking from my experience, meditation is the best thing I’ve ever done, probably in general, but definitely for my health. Yet amidst this evangelical fervor in praise of meditation, it’s more important than ever to keep one thing in mind: Meditation is NOT a cure for illness.

In my last blog post, I wrote about my bratty childhood and how meditation can transform one’s relationship with winning and losing. I’ve found that not only does meditation help me get over the losses faster, it teaches me how to learn from them. The following is a story that happened a couple months after I started meditating.

There’s a golfer that every other golfer dreads. This troubled soul has an insurmountable chasm between how good they think they should be and how good they actually are. That chasm is expressed with pouting, tantrums, cursing, and generally inexcusable behavior.

Until the age of sixteen, I was that golfer.