Sunday, March 11, 2018

A New Hope Awakens

I'm not one who lets failure get me down.

Whenever I trip and fall, I'm back up and running in no time. What's the point moping around for days, licking my wounds and reflecting about the injustices of life? Instead, I'm always looking forward for the new big challenge... and bracing myself for the next epic failure.

And as I've said last week - and will say again - failure isn't the end of the world.

In every failure, awakens a new hope.

"Good stuff, Master Yoda - but they're all going to die horribly in Episode III, y'know?"

Different Faces, Same Goal

So right after leading a team of students into epic failure, I'm supposed to guide another team to glory.

But this time, it was a team of fresh faces. So I delegated most of the heavy lifting to my senior students to mentor them.

It's good training for the seniors to be future trainers. Eases my burden training everyone on my own. And besides, I wouldn't want to pass on my bad luck to them, and maybe they're even better teachers than I am.

The team was heading into a novice competition in Singapore. The stakes weren't that high. There was room for trial and error. Learning, not winning, was in the forefront of their minds.

Still, a competition is a competition. And the best way for us to learn is striving to win.

To Infinity And Beyond

So how did we fare in Singapore?

Not too bad. Given their inexperience and preparation time constraints, they performed well. The problem (which I had designed with much deliberation) was way above their level, so they were punching above their weight.

Plenty of room for improvement, of course. But more importantly, plenty of reason for optimism.

They're a bright bunch of students. Rough diamonds. Stars in the making.

In short, they gave me great hopes for the future. I'm excited to continue their training.

Their limits? What limits? Batman has no limits, and neither should they. Setting limits for them would be limiting how far and fast they can go.

They have the potential to soar higher than any of us have reached before.

Fashion fail: short tie, unbuttoned jacket


Hope Wins

Even when we fail, we should never give up hope.

It's only when we give up hope, do we truly give in to failure.

As long as we have hope, we can never fail.


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