The first situation that I described is something that, with the slightest inclination of ambition, most people would understand. Simple feedback loop where working hard leads to better results.
Effort Reward Loop |
It's my guess that the second situation I
described doesn’t happen often for most people. Its positive result simply
cannot be credited to the effort-ee when so many obstacles are just thrown in
the equation. However, the result still remarkably comes out in one's favor.
For example:
These are the times when you calculate all that is against you, you clearly should fail...but for some reason, you still end up on top. You are lucky if this happens to you. You are REALLY lucky when this happens more than once. The Big Guy upstairs was certainly looking out for me, because in my own life, I can narrow it down to a total of 3 Accidental Successes.
The first time this happened was at my Fifth Grade Dance. During the middle of the event, the DJ set up a Nerf basketball hoop and asked for the girls and guys to each pick a member of their gender to try to shoot the ball into the net from a ridiculously far distance. I don’t know why but the girls pushed me to the front and somehow I was selected to represent the gals, while the future highschool football star and senior homecoming king stood in for the guys. It might have only been 30 ft or so, but to a 4’10”girl it was like making a basket from across a major highway. The boy shot and missed, and then it was my turn. I crossed my toes inside my Reebok sneakers as I threw the foam ball into the air. I don’t know how, or why, but that ball swished through the net and suddenly I was overwhelmed with 30 girls screaming and jumping up and down around me. (Feel free to imagine this with all the flashing lights and music to enhance the dramatic effect.) The DJ even screamed at me, “How did you DO that?!? That’s IMPOSSIBLE!” May sound stupid to you, but it was a glorious moment for me. It might have been an A.S. but I didn’t care. I was the new girl, and I just got cool.
Me right before 5th grade; clearly need the cool points. |
My second A.S.
occurred in October of 2008 during the Expert Field Medical Badge (EFMB for
short) event while I was still in the Army. This coveted badge is considered
“one of the most difficult and prestigious Army skill badges to earn”
(according to Wiki) with a pass rate of 15.3% in that year. I had always wanted
to give it a shot before hanging up the uniform for good, and also just needed
a vacay from my desk job. I was extremely rusty in all my Soldier skills and
really, I didn’t expect much from myself. The only person I knew to get the
badge the first go-around was Andy, but that’s just because he’s a bad ass who
I’d go to war with any day (oh wait, I did.) Anyway, over the course of the 11
days, the major task I just knew I’d
fail was Land Navigation, a “skill” I always had to remediate every time I was
tested in the Army since my days at West Point. So there I was, setting out in
the dark with a topographical map, compass, protractor, pencil, and a
flashlight – with four hours to find 3 out of 4 points scattered randomly over
a 5000m course. Within 40 minutes, I was completely lost in the woods and even
struggled to get back to my start point. I tried 3 or 4 times to get that first
point, and then gave up and tried for another 1.5 hours to get the second one.
Finally, with about an hour remaining and zero points, I grabbed a leftover MRE
brownie out of my pack, found a rock near an intersection of the dirt roads,
and sat down. As I gazed up into the starry night through an opening in the
trees, I thought about how humiliating it would be to head back with no points.
I thought about how I would tell Andy I failed, and how I would have to go back
to my unit and explain to my Soldiers that it was “just a really tough course.”
I looked at my watch and saw that I had 50 minutes left, and it was way too
early to turn in and decided I needed to at least fail with one point. So, I
plotted my 4th set of coordinates on my map, which was about 1500m
away and the one I was planning on skipping, shot an azimuth with my compass,
and just started walking. When I finished counting my steps and looked up,
turned on my flashlight, I saw the glimmer of the orange triangle just a few
feet ahead. I still remember the feeling of shock and disbelief, and something
just switched inside me. I got this glimmer of hope that came out of nowhere,
and took about 20 seconds to analyze the situation. I had about thirty minutes
left to cover about a mile and a half, find 2 more points and my endpoint and
turn in my card. With my previous success rate and amount of remaining time,
anyone could see I would need nothing short of a miracle to get through this.
All I remember from that very moment is that I tied my sack really tight so my
other snacks wouldn’t fall out, said a short prayer, and ran.
That night, with literally 2 minutes remaining, I completed the first task of 60+ more and ultimately was awarded the EFMB a few days later. Am I proud? Sure. But really, I’m just grateful. Try and tell me that was not an A.S.
Last task for the badge: 12 mile road march with this on your back. |
I still wonder sometimes how I got into this school….supposedly one of the most prestigious dental schools in the nation, the first dental school established in the world, the most technologically advanced school in existence, blah blah blah. My DAT scores were embarrassingly lower than the national average, my GPA definitely well below my peers, I was a geography undergrad major, and I seriously took online classes to meet all the requirements. The only thing I had going for me was my military experience completely unrelated to dentistry, which I most definitely threw in there at some point during my interview when I sensed a downward turn.
“So Ms. Chung, explain to me these ‘distance’ and ‘independent’ courses that you seemingly enrolled in at this one university I have never heard of in West Virginia.”
"Well I had to take online courses because I was deployed to Iraq, you know, fighting for the liberty and freedom of all Americans…and,<ehem> yours.”
So I may have guilt-tripped my way into dental school, but this A.S. is one I will never argue with. I don’t know why they took me, but hey, I got in, I traded my Army Camouflage for pretty purple scrubs, and heck, I’m gonna be a dentist one day.
I remember holding onto Andy’ shoulders and jumping up and down in a circle as an almost-reflexive reaction to getting my acceptance letter, grinning from ear to ear for about a week, and feeling like I was on top of the world.
Dental School Acceptance |
No comments:
Post a Comment