The timid, yet brave guys in Singapore

I'm actually going to write an article on bravery, its based on my own real-life account. Remember in school when we looked at sportsmen, rugby players, swimmers, canoeiests and dragonboaters....etc etc. They always seemed so high up there, fit and intimidating, they seemed very proud of their trade and oozed self-professed machoism. The geeks in school, with their thick glasses and studious ways were often bullied and were made to feel inferior, they weren't real men. They were out-casts.

However....

College then came to an end and we were all dragged into slavery, beaten and shaped into soldiers. I was 19 when I went into the army and i realised one thing. All the school jocks, those sportsmen we all looked at, envied and were even jealous of. The rugby players tried to get themselves downgraded because of some ancient injury they sustained. The soccer players did the same, so many of these sportsmen tried to get deskjobs, because they felt that what the rest of the population of guys were doing, was beneath them.

Thinking back...

The people who bullied these "geeks" and un-manly guys, were all trying to escape doing something alittle tedious. Around me i saw all those college geeks I used to laugh at, although slow, their transformation started to show. Some of these geeks couldn't run, couldn't do chin ups and were too blur to save themselves. Slowly these "geeks" started to shine through, they tried, and failed and tried again. Those that couldn't run, began to train and clocked good timings. Those that couldn't do chin-ups rallied, at the end of the day and did chin ups together.

I saw...

I saw all this in my Basic Military Training (BMT). While the geeks tried and triumphed over adversity. The sportsmen schemed how to get 8 to 5 jobs, how to get themselves downgraded and thought of excuses to report sick. I was a sportsmen in school and i made fun of "geeky" people, I thought they were too soft and useless. I resisted the urge to get myself out of a combat vocation because in the end it wasn't the former school jocks that inspired. Rather, it was the geeks that spured me on. It was one of God's ways of showing me how even the most timid guy has his brave moments.

Looking back..

Its been some years since then. I've since left the army and I'm halfway through my degree. The geeks in college have benefitted from army, they are bolder, more confident and they were no longer the weak people in my eyes. The jocks, didn't improve, they either stagnated or went down-hill. Most lost their fitness and their muscles, which have no use in the real world. But they desperately cling on to flagging memories and embrace the same mentality that has caused them to reach this sad state..

GOD used the weak to humble me, the strong fell and were washed away .Adveristy brings the best out in people, the smallest person can have the fiercest determination. The biggest and strongest person can quickly crumble under the pressures of the real world.


So I ask you guys, especially those from Singapore, who are the REAL men? Did you have the guts to change your own circumstances....