My colleague once told me to be more positive thinking rather than being a pessimist. Well, of course when you are doing a project it’s better to have some reservation in your planning. Forrest Gump’s famous quote, “Life is just like a box of chocolate. You never know what you going to get”. My senior thought me this saying, “Hope for the best, pray for the worst”. In life, we should never give up until the last moment.
I was watching the badminton final of Lee Chong Wei versus his nemesis Lin Dan last month on the Asian Game. Well, we knew the game was won by Lin Dan. Han Ching who was watching with me at the local mamak stall that time had given up hope on Chong Wei when Lin Dan was leading by huge margin in the rubber set. After the match, she told me that she has a belief that every time she watches the game live, our players will lose. Some sort of bad omen. That was exactly what I thought when I was small watching Foo Kok Keong fighting for every shuttles. Bringing bad luck to our players by watching them play.
Soon, I realize that no matter I watch it or not, it will bring no difference because I’m watching it via television. Whatever I do or cursing the opponent, I won’t “convey” this message to them. In other word, they won’t be affected by our act of watching them live on television. Unless, we are the spectators inside the game. Who knows, if I shouted, “Dan Dan, will you marry me?!” will make his legs shaken, eventually lost focus and then caused him the game. It is in this situation I agreed that watching the match will affect the result.
She was pushing me to leave when she thought there was no way Chong Wei managed to catch up. I told her to wait and finish up the game. There might be miracle. I explained to her again that what if Chong Wei keeps on playing without giving up. And of all the sudden, Lin Dan suffered a sprained knee trying to pick up a smash. The pain might be too unbearable and he can even stand up and then concede the game. This can happen you see.
When I was playing in chess tournament in school, I used to tell my team members to never ever resign the game. Even when you are left with one King to play. You will never know what will happen. People tend to make mistake when they are too confident. There was one game I read that the opponent was disqualified because he didn’t switch of his handphone during the competition. Just imagine if I was playing with Gary Kasparov with many punters putting their money on the chess grandmaster only to be beaten by me because he didn’t switch off his phone. Well a 1-0 is 1-0 no matter what and the result stands.
Besides, why would you give your opponent easy way to win instead of squeezing him to the limit and make him play with you to the last move? Even if you know you are hopeless, at least show to your opponent that you are willing to fight to the end and not a quitter. Earn some respect mate.
I learnt this moral fiber from my closed friend in secondary school. You see there are people who walk out from the exam hall with 30 minutes left. Two possibilities. The question paper is darn easy or the paper is darn tough and he had given up hope. Back to this friend of mine, he’s very good in English subject. I was sitting behind him. Well, of course not peeking at his answers. My English is not as good as him but I had finished my questions with 30 minutes left!! So, I thought this friend of mine will finish with 45 minutes left. But no. While I was laying my head on the answer sheet, I looked at him. He was still doing his paper. With 5 minutes about to submit with most of the classmates had left the hall, he was still flipping the question paper and scribbling on the answer sheet.
It makes me wonder whether the paper was too easy to be true and was too tricky. After we submitted our answer sheets, I approached him and asked whether the paper was tough as he seems to struggle to the last minutes. He shook his head.
“No? I see you writing till the last minutes” I said.
“Not like that Au Yong. You see, we have 60 minutes to answer, why not fully utilized it? I used the extra time to recheck my answer then see whether I fill up the correct answer.” he replied.
From then onwards, I was the last person in every exam I sat. Until the last minutes. Recheck, reread and recheck again and again after I finished answered. What’s the hurry of leaving the hall? You only have one chance to do the exam (unless you know you will be re-sitting) , why not do it wholehearted so that you won’t have any regrets. And who knows, since only you are left there, the examiner will come to your table and pointed on your wrongly answered question. Believe me, it happened to me before.
Therefore,
“Never ever say die until the last minute”
Even if you are surrounded by your enemy in a paintball game.
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