Blind Pass
jcapinpin@theguidon.com
When I was much younger, I loved going to Worlds of Fun to play X-Men vs. Street Fighter. My goal was simple: beat the game. With my eagerness and 10 tokens, I tested my skills. The CPU-controlled opponents would get tougher and eventually, I would reach the boss, Apocalypse.
However, I couldn’t seem to beat him. I kept trying until I searched my front pockets and found nothing. It was literally “game over” for me.
In life, we are also confronted with our own battles in the form of competitions or personal struggles. Even though we have the drive to succeed, we sometimes fall short. We find ourselves asking the question, “Should we continue?”
Luckily, there is no countdown timer that pressures us to make a rushed decision—we have an unlimited number of tokens in this game. The value to it, however, heavily depends on whether or not we are still interested in winning the battle.
Facing defeat multiple times can be very frustrating especially for those who have invested so much in pursuing a goal. Our pride can be likened to an armor that is damaged—it exposes our weaknesses. People hide these weaknesses by putting the spotlight on others and putting blame on them, because more often than not, we all want to camouflage our flaws.
In the case of students, many blame their low grades on the teaching styles of their professors and the academic requirements they mandate. Because of this, the weakness of the student is rationalized, in an act of affirming that he is really competent to study in the Ateneo. Here, we see that his armor is “repaired” and can now share his experience of “survival” with much more confidence to his peers.
To clarify my point, I don’t mean to say that current students in the school are not competent to study here. By virtue of passing the ACET, they have proven themselves worthy of studying in the Ateneo. However, we might have become too fond of making ourselves feel good about these losses. We lie to ourselves that we’re good enough through the excuses we make, thus creating an environment of complacency and self-righteousness.
After his match against Juan Manuel Marquez, Manny Pacquiao humbly admitted that he became overconfident during the match. He was humiliated in front of the world by a knockout, yet he didn’t blame it on his lack of training or Marquez stepping on his foot during that punch. It was his mistake and he acknowledged that. He was that kind of man—and this, in my opinion, makes him all the more respectable to the eyes of those who have witnessed his defeat.
In the same way, we should learn how to admit our weaknesses and faults to others. Losing is nothing but a phase in life. It is part of that constructive process which lets us identify the areas where we can still improve.
We are not less because of our imperfections. Rather, they complete our being and we should therefore take ownership of these.
Although we can’t win every single battle in our lives, we can surely mature each time we face challenges. This 2013, I hope that we can have this better attitude and proper mindset towards defeat so we can all live out the true mark of being an Atenean—being humble men and women for others.
