"... grit to face adversities head on and not run away at the first sight of trouble ..."
The above may have appeared too often in our lives such that it becomes a cliche, but for a moment I had a sudden realisation. Had I been consciously or subsconciously guilty of it? The more I thought about it, the more realisations about my life surfaced.
I guess taking the easy way out wasn't a difficult choice for many self-confessed rational thinking people like me. It saves trouble, hassle, and embarrassment of failure. But miracles happen only when someone does things with a conviction that even failure would not deter him. People like me can never achieve such greatness if we continue taking the easy way out.
Take for example Ronaldinho's goal against Chelsea in the 1-1 draw champions league match on 7th march 2006. When he received the ball from Eto'o in the least of spaces, lesser mortals would pass it to an available teamate. What he did was to charge straight into his opponents with his beliefs and skills, brushed past the tackles in his face, and fired a shot that no one could save.
He is not called a football great for nothing.
Yes he did have excellent techique, but without a matching mentality, those talents could never be unleashed in a competitive environment. It is his never run-away attitude that earned my admiration for him.
Although I had once shamelessly called myself Ronaldilang during my hostel days, I knew I am no where near compared to him. I always had the bad habit of taking the easy way out most of the time.
Examples?
Many. The minor ones would be like leaving a dota game after being fragged 3 times or more in a row, running a few rounds less from my self imposed target, not willing to make a firm tackle with the slightest of pain in my foot. Then there were the too easily given up attempts at pursuing girls, putting away math problems at the first sight of fear...
Relinquishing the dream of becoming a professor in mathematics.
Maybe I had made an unscalable dream. Becoming an expert in mathematics requires a lot of time, effort, patience, passion, and determination. Would formulating excuses for myself make it easier for me to give it up? Would I be contented all my life if I took the stable option of being a math teacher? I remembered a japanese drama which I watched years ago. The lead actor was a struggling mathematician, and he was questioned by the lead actress.
"Why go to Boston in the first place if you knew you would give it all up one day and return to Japan?"
What a dig at his lack of perseverance! I remembered the days when I would was totally enticed by mathematics that I could spent the whole day sitting down and thinking about problems. But I guess that interest was soon eroded by the limited time and unlimited work to do during a typical NUS semester. Excuses again? See what I mean about myself...
However, something that steered my mentality in the right direction happened recently.
Last friday was brigade games day for our unit. My company needed runners to participate in the relay which was the finale event. I was asked to run, but I declined because I had an uncomfortable strain on my right knee ligament. It would hurt even during light jogging. Something told me that it would not last a high tempo 200m race.
One day before the race day, my officer requested me to run because they were lacking runners from the troopers (or because of their inaccurate perception that I am a fast runner?). With my knee feeling slightly better, I agreed to run. (But not without certain unpleasant exchanges with my officers.)
An hour before the race, the knee cropped up its usual problems again. I had participated in the street soccer tournament before the run, so maybe that explains the pain. My team had lost the soccer game undeservedly. The opponents' goal was a lucky shot that went through everyone's tackling radius. I was quite overwhelmed with disgust over their luck. I wanted get some justice done. Overtaking people in the race later would provide the perfect opportunity. This time round, I had no thoughts of passing up the run to another person. Pain in the knee took the least priority. (If you hadn't known by now, Ah Lang is a f**king sore loser.)
Somehow that anger carried me through that 200m despite the pain which kept me whining for the past few days. We got in first eventually thanks to the other fast runners in my team. It was only after a good recollection in the tranquility at home that I realised the powerful effects of mind over body.
Miracles do happen, as long as the mind does not give up.
If I can persevere, I am sure someday I will recover passion to do my mathematics, and go all the way to court the lady of my dreams. :)
Because today, I learnt that my mind had trimphed over my inhibitions for once in an very long time.
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