Guys, let's respond to challenges!

Recently, someone told me that if we want to grow in life (means in terms of maturity and character), we have to learn to move out of our comfort zone into the combat zone. When I heard that, I really agree with it.

One thing for sure, guys at every stage of life - be it adolescent, youth, young adult or mature men, thrive on challenges. When we are young, we like to challenge our peers in almost everything - be it studies, computer games (like DOTA, CS, Halo 2) or sports. When we are older, we like to challenge ourselves in our careers. We like to live in the combat zone!

When we guys overcome challenges in our lives, it gives us a certain sense of achievement. To be exact, it makes us feel validated. Each of us will believe that "I can make it". Somehow, this is part of the guys' make up. And it's terribly important to us.

Conversely, when we guys refuse to take up any challenges in life, we lose the fighting spirit in us. We lose the zest in life. We don't dare to take risks. Everything becomes a rountine. We just want to be comfortable right where we are. And when there's a turn of events (of which we can't control, like natural diasters) that shake us up, we would be paralysed and not being able to respond.

Personally, the latest challenge came early this year. I was given the opportunity to either apply for teaching in Raffles Institution or Hwa Chong Institution. Well, I graduated from Hwa Chong more than 10 years ago. It would of course be more comfortable for me to go back to my old school.

However, I need a challenge in life. I need to be uncomfortable so that I can grow. That's one of the reasons why I decided to apply for RI. And right now, I'm a teacher in the school. Though the culture is totally different from Hwa Chong, I really felt that I've learnt a lot, and am having a great time over there. =)


(Of course, we must make sure that the challenges that we take up are good challenges, and not bad ones.)