Ironies in life

All the hard work and sacrifices the team has made finally culminated into a result we could be proud of.

We had a goal. We had a dream. We wanted a breakthrough.

We wanted to get into the finals of Singapore River Regatta and be among the top teams.

Some times, our hopes where high. Other times, we were fraught with doubt. But we did not give up.

In the end, our hard work paid off, admittedly with a bit of luck. We got the breakthrough we worked so hard for. We got into the plate finals, coming in fourth.

Perhaps to the top teams, this was nothing great to boast of. But for a team we built from scratch, working upwards from the bottom, it was a great achievement for us. It was more than just a just a win in the race. In the process, we proved to ourselves what we are capable of.

The few days before the race, I dreamed that perhaps we could even win something, and I could get up stage and collect a medal for the team. Though I dared not be too hopeful.

As luck would have it, one of the team got a penalty time and we got bumped up from fourth to third!

But we did not realize that third position in the plate finals came with a plate. (Most Plate finals only has a plate for the 1st team). And we went away in joy and exhilaration over our own achievement, and missed the moment of glory of going up stage to get the prize we won for ourselves.

I found that a great irony indeed.

I am sure the team will continue on to achieve greater heights. But I won't be the one who will be going up the stage to collect the prize anymore. The new captain will do that.

However, I am deeply satisfied to have lead the team to its break-through. What was deeply satisfying, was to see the joy on everyone's faces, the tears some people were blinking away, the excitement hidden in their tense bodies, the pride, the sense of fulfillment... those were priceless.

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.