Grit

I failed spectacularly in the AMC today.

People often look stunned when they hear that I underperformed, because you’re supposed to achieve a certain level of nirvana where you can do no wrong. I have no excuses, because I think that I’ve finally realized something today.

Suhaimi once told us, when we were walking back from the afterparty with the bass line of the music slowly pulsating in the distance, that he thought that this was a good year. I snorted a little, because in which parallel universe, by whose standards, did I do well? I kicked the pebbles around my feet and tucked my hands deeper inside my jacket as the Dutch summer winds rushed in our faces. He continues anyway. Learning to grasp disappointment is one of the biggest lessons you can learn, he tells us. I wish I could have learnt that earlier on. And he’s right; because I’m gradually learning to take the hit of disappointment straight in the guts, so that I can get back up; because I’m gradually learning that dragging our feet around and welling ourselves up with self-pity doesn’t help at all. And you learn, too; every time you get back up, you learn, every time you’re wrong, you learn.

And boy, did I learn. I’ve finally realized that I’m a very weak person psychologically; when I get stuck on a problem, I panic; when I hit a dead end, I sweat. And then it sparks off a whole plethora of silly things – many, many miscalculations, ignoring the obvious, or just wasting the time away worrying about falling short of my goals. And I’ve always wondered why I can never perform to the standard I normally do while taking competitions, why I keep falling short of what I’m capable of. It’s because of this, you see. Experience counts in everything. I just haven’t learned to perform well under pressure: when the clock tick tocks the final minutes, when I don’t seem to be getting anywhere, when I find myself wondering more about how bad this is going to look than the problem at hand.

And this why I like the idea of the AMC – it weeds out the mentally weak like me. 75 minutes is certainly enough to complete all of the problems, but for many people, we fall into the same trap. Underperforming in the AMC doesn’t mean that you’re weak mathematically, but it was a definite slap to the face. It feels painful, but good.

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