Saluting Dr William Tan

Last Saturday, I was at the NUS Centennial Challenge Dinner which was an evening to honour some extraordinary achievements by NUS sportsmen and sportswomen. Undoubtedly, the highlight was on the Everest Team who summited Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world. Lots of personal sacrifices were involved to train for this expedition and the Everest team does risk their lives as they embark on their Everest quest. Known from Chee Meng that the ratio of survival for everest climbers is 1 death for every 7 who reach the peak. In addition, there is a kind of agreement that among all everest climbers that their bodies will be thrown into the clavices of Everest in the event they did not survive in the process of climbing. All in all, this is to avoidthe possible low morale that future climbers may be faced with if they were to stumble upon dead corpses while climbing Mt Everest... Last but not least, a visa climb Mt Everest is about USD$10k per person...

NUS Alumni, Dr William is phenomenal... You definitely need to google to read more about him... Apart from exceling academically, he overcome all odds that comes along with polio and went for numerous international marathons to raise funds for charity and educational causes... I was in awe of his passion and achievements. As I was the video presentation which highlights the marathons he has participated... A thought came to my mind:

To win a race, it is not a matter of the strength of your legs...
Your arms can be as strong as your legs if you really want them to...

So folks, we have both healthy legs and arms, but have we really make a differences in others people lives using what we are endowed with? (I am not asking you to run a marathon; think of it as a analogy...)Or are we oblivious of the fact and have taken many things for granted...