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Singaporeans should be like a chilli padi in navigating challenges

There are many life lessons that one can experience through sports. We have stories aplenty of Singaporean athletes pushing boundaries and setting new records: the extreme runners who take on self-supported, multi-day races across insane distances and terrains, the climbers who scale Everest and other peaks, and those who have brought home cherished Olympic medals.

Anyone who has sports at the centre of their life can easily rattle off a list of insights gained from our athletic pursuits that guide how we live and interact with others. TODAY file photo

Anyone who has sports at the centre of their life can easily rattle off a list of insights gained from our athletic pursuits that guide how we live and interact with others. TODAY file photo

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There are many life lessons that one can experience through sports. We have stories aplenty of Singaporean athletes pushing boundaries and setting new records: the extreme runners who take on self-supported, multi-day races across insane distances and terrains, the climbers who scale Everest and other peaks, and those who have brought home cherished Olympic medals.

Beyond these well-known national athletes, there are also many of us who put ourselves out there in the international field simply to improve our art and test our thresholds.

Anyone who has sports at the centre of their life can easily rattle off a list of insights gained from our athletic pursuits that guide how we live and interact with others.

Sifting through my own experiences, I settled on two which I think are apt reminders for us as Singapore gracefully moves beyond age 52.

First, to continue being the bold chilli padi that we are. “Team Chilli Padi” is a name that I like to use during team races, and so far, it has brought luck.

A chilli padi is familiar to Singaporeans and all who love our food: that tiny red pepper with fiery seeds that adds a distinctive flavour to dishes, yet also inflicts some serious pain if chewed carelessly.

To me, it symbolises not underestimating or messing with Singapore(ans): we may be small, but we can pack a blistering punch.

I was never sporty growing up, being neither as able nor coordinated as some of my peers who could rip through the pool, sprint around the track, or catch a fast-flying ball with a mitt.

I never liked running when I was in school, and had no talent for speed or agility.

It was only after graduation that I discovered the magical world of endurance sports, and found myself quickly hooked.

The holy grail for many road runners is the Boston Marathon, and for trail runners the 100-mile Ultra-trail Mont Blanc (UTMB). Not being a naturally gifted runner, it took me close to 10 years to build the foundation and confidence needed to cross those finish lines, with many other races in between.

Over the years, I have had my fair share of injuries, sub-par and did-not-finish races, and failed summit attempts, but I kept returning for more.

The peak of Mt Aconcagua (6,962m), for example, evaded me several times. It would have been easy to capitulate to the narrative of a tiny girl from the tropics, ill-acclimatised to the challenges of high mountains and their fickle weather, but I did not want to feed that stereotype.

So I tried and tried again, until I successfully scaled the mountain on my third attempt in early 2017.

As we learn from our setbacks and disappointments, it is equally important not to be defeated by them. Others may want to pigeonhole us, or write us off in certain ways, but we should not allow ourselves to be so defined.

Keeping a chilli padi mindset means to keep challenging definitions and assumptions, and pushing the boundaries of possibility to chart our own journeys, no matter how long it might take.

As individuals, as a public service, and as a nation. A chilli padi, yes; not a strawberry.

My second lesson from these athletic pursuits is the importance of staying grounded in humility - always. Being in the mountains is a very humbling experience. Our fragility and vulnerability is laid bare for all to witness, and confronting our fears becomes a visceral here-and-now reality.

I was climbing Mustag Ata (7,546m) in Xinjiang, China, with some friends in 2007. I remember a stretch of descent where I was extremely low on energy and motivation, just trudging my way down to our tents in a mindless fashion.

All of a sudden, there was a commotion as a group of guides and climbers caught up from behind. I looked closer and realised that they were evacuating a corpse, taking turns to slide the stretcher down the long snow slope. It was an instantly sobering moment for me; I snapped awake and got moving.

Last year, I was at Denali (6,190m) when a skier slipped and fell off a slope. Our expedition team was making our way back to a large campsite when, alongside our group, we saw a black speck moving in the far distance before suddenly vanishing.

By the time we got back to our campsite, we learned that there had been a fatal accident. Unfortunately, the infamous arctic weather conditions prevented the evacuating chopper from reaching the camp until a few days later.

Meanwhile, the body stayed on the camp grounds, and there was not much that anyone could do except wait.

My point in sharing these stories is not to paint a picture of danger and helplessness, which might cause some to quit and deter others from attempting an endeavour.

On the contrary, it is a call to stay humble, always, as we continue to journey towards our literal and figurative summits in an environment far larger than us.

These stories have been my reminders to stay open to unlearning old lessons and readapting to new realities, to eschew complacency, and to not be lulled by a false sense of expertise and infallibility.

In the mountains, there is no place for egos or conquests - nature easily puts us all in our place.

There is always something new to learn about ourselves or from others and the surroundings, always something to ‘just deal with’ or improvise upon. In this age of social media, where achievements and challenges are judged by thumbs-up in our echo-chambers, it can become easy to lose our sense of self to peer pressure or ego-inflation.

So, as Singapore moves into higher uncharted terrain, I hope that we can remain grounded in the same humility and openness that guided us in our earlier history.

I carry a small Singapore flag to many of my overseas races and climbs, and am immensely proud to display it at the finish lines and summits.

The world will not miss us if we are gone; we owe it to ourselves and future generations to chart and stay the course, alive.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sim Phei Sunn is currently a Principal Consultant with the Institute of Leadership and Organisation Development, Civil Service College, where she works on group and organisational dynamics. She has been running and climbing for more than 10 years, and remains hooked by ultra-endurance adventures around the world. This piece first appeared in The Birthday Book 2017, a collection of 52 essays that examines challenges and opportunities for Singapore with the theme “What Should We Never Forget?”

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