Ending of the Mulling Period...

It was 10 days ago that I received a email from Mille, Area manager for communication from NIRAS... It goes:

Dear Ryan,

This week, we had a meeting of the panel of judges and I had hoped
for a decision then, but alas or hurrah, your essays provoked a lot of
discussion. I hope to get a final decision this week and will let each of
you know the moment I have it confirmed!
...

Next 10 days was a "mulling period"... The decisive email finally came last night (which is Denmark's afternoon) and informed me that I was not one of the two winners of the essay competition... Some excerpts of the email are:

...

All the essays were of a very high standard and it was very difficult to make a decision. That also explains the prolonged period before we could contact you again. The judges spent a lot of time discussing the essays. All of them were thought provoking and that is certainly meant as a compliment!

...
Let me thank you for your professional and personal efforts and your enthusiasm. It has been a rewarding experience to read your thoughts on the future and your very different approaches...

There was a tint of disappointment definitely, even more so when sacrifices were made to complete the essay by the deadline... But I felt more of relieved coz I do not need to live in the anticipation of "unknown" anymore... It has been really unproductive for the past 10 days... If the clock would have reversed back to last December when the competition was launched in universities all over the world, I would still have taken part and put in my utmost effort to complete the abstract and the final essay... Despite not being one of the 2 winners, I have learnt a lot in the process of writing this essay... I have learnt that information overload is undesirable and to excel, one have to be like a laser and focus on your niche area... I have even played with an idea of publishing a book which give a pictorial perspective of life... That is using photographs I have taken and relaying the lessons of life through my them... I will email Thomas L. Friedman, author of "The World is Flat" and provide him with my perspective of a future global knowledge society... After connecting the "dots" back to its sources, there is always a reason why things happens... =)

I sent a email back to Mille, expressing my gratitude for her help rendered throughout the entire writing process and also mention when I go Denmark one of these days, I will love to visit "The Little Mermaid" and of course NIRAS Consulting firm... And yea, she replied and said NIRAS will be sending us a copy of the NIRAS 50th anniversary publication which will have all the 10 finalist essay published sent to us when they are ready... =)