0.0002 seconds

How do you measure 0.0002 seconds? How much can you row or run in that split millisecond?

Well, we missed out our chance to get into the next round in today's 5-crew dragon boat race by exactly that much time.

Granted that we did not perform as well as yesterday -- if we could manage the time we did yesterday, we would have come in first in our semi finals round and get into the minor finals. But to miss out our chance in the next round by that little time is something that's kind of hard to believe.

I could not help but wondered, what if I had cox'ed the boat better, kept it in a straighter course and not rocked the boat so much, or if I had just pull that one stroke harder....

Well, that's was the official results. Everything else is moot point after the fact.

It just leaves me wondering, how often in life, do we notice things that happened in an instantaneous moment that affect an outcome and our experience. I suspect that it probably happened a lot more often than we realized. Perhaps some decisions we made in that split second actually put us on a different course in life.