No, I am not talking about Step Up the dance show/movie. I'm just talking as human beings.
That moment when you feel like giving up? Don't. The greatest things in life do not come from giving up but rather persistence and perseverance. I am glad to have a sister who is an example of that. In the past semester, I had the thought of going "hey, why don't i do something different and do the electrical engineering project instead of something that is simpler or more close to home?". Hence, I took up electrical engineering for my design course and was one heck of a ride. It was one of the toughest things I have ever done in my life. One reason I picked aerospace engineering is because I do not have to deal with electronics and here am I doing it. It was hard, difficult and painful as I did not have a slightest clue of what was I doing and what was I suppose to do as a group member. I told myself one thing. I said at the beginning that I would do it means I would do it properly. I don't care how hard it is, I will try my best.
The best I did do with the consequences of neglecting my other subjects. I began to slack in math, physics and computing as a result of that. I spent so much time researching, stressing, asking and trying that I reached the point that this is ridiculous. During the final stages of completing the project, I and all my teammates stepped up and did what would normally take four weeks in just a few days. I said, "Hey guys, it's either we do it right or we don't do it all. I know we can just hope for a pass but we already are doing this. We might as well go all the way."
On the day of acceptance testing where final submissions are marked and tested, our autonomous delivery system was nothing close to one. The circuits was not working. The car did not have enough power. The string was not long enough. It was a disaster to say the least. I then said, "Well, we tried our best. " Then a miracle happened. We were the last group to go for our submissions so we had about four hours to work on it. I hesitated going should I work on my circuit. How much could I actually do? I and my teammate took a go at it, keep working and working at it, asking our demonstrators as much as we could. It was a nerve wrecking process to begin with and felt like being on the edge of the cliff towards the end. WE ACTUALLY GOT IT TO WORK. We got the simple circuit to work fine. All in the matter of hours. My teammates did their parts as well.
Unfortunately, our car did not have enough power as the weight was too heavy. But we were one of the better teams. We did not quite get the full marks but we got a really good mark for uniqueness, speed, concept and circuits. I just couldn't believe it. In a matter of day, when all was gone and seem hopeless, we turned the wheel around and got back on track. It was a miracle that I thanked God for.
I went into the lion's den coming out feeling "hey, I did not do too bad. I didn't get bitten. Maybe a bit. But it's one of the steepest learning curve for me."
In the midst of perseverance and persistence, will come a sense of victory and satisfaction. You're a winner then already even if you didn't win. :)
