24th Aug Warm

Read on the newspaper that a Cuban taekwondo player was judged lost in the 3rd placing match, and he got so furious about the judgement that he landed a perfect score kick on the judge's face. As if that wasn't enough, his coach joined in the fun!

Amidst all that fun, I'm sure the player and the coach did feel some sense of satisfaction from hurting the referee. I remind everyone that you all hot blooded young punks have no idea what results 10 seconds right after having that little sense of achievement.

The cuban player and coach is now declared BANNED from all international and olympic games from the Taekwondo federation. Good. Now they have all the time in the world to go think how fantastic they felt when they hurt the referee. Of cause the real situation could be what we do not know. Maybe it was really a wrong judgement. Maybe they might be right. Maybe. A BIG maybe. Its all maybes. But, what is confirmed, is they are now forever banned from the game they loved. They have also let their country down, with their trust in the both of them to represent the country.

This is a lesson learnt for everyone, my friends and students alike. Hot blooded decisions, made without careful thinking of the consequences, often make you and/or the people around you suffer. You could probably tell a thousand reasons why you made that decision, but you can never argue the fact that you did something wrong, and you did nothing to stop that, just because of a spur of the moment's emotions.

If you are ever caught in a situation where you are entangled in the web of confused emotions, my suggestion to you is;
- review your situation again,
- redetermine your options again,
- measure what is important to you, and what's not,
- choose the option you feel you can bear the consequences with,

People often told me never to regret my decisions, but I beg to differ.

I do not regret. I merely look back at my previous decisions, and see how I can do better next time. I apologise for my mistakes, I'll admit I screwed up, and then I move on. I do not get stuck in the same vicious cycle of "I'm correct, I need to prove I'm right, I want all of you to know I'm the best and I'm not wrong".


My motto in life:
Change what you still can change in the future, and don't look back at the past which you can never change. Reflections are for champs, regrets are for losers.


DDOJ:

John woke up after the annual office new year party with a pounding headache, cotton-mouthed and utterly unable to recall the events of the preceding evening. After a trip to the bathroom, he made his way downstairs, where his wife put some coffee in front of him.'Louise,' he moaned, 'tell me what happened last night. Was it as bad as I think?''Even worse,' she said, her voice oozing scorn. 'You made a complete ass of yourself. You succeeded in antagonizing the entire board of directors, and you insulted the president of the company, right to his face.'

'He's an idiot,' John said. 'Piss on him.'

'You did', came the reply. 'And he fired you.'

'Well, screw him!' said John.

'I did. You're back to work on Monday.'

Adios!