Thang Nguyen 555

Whether the incident was personal or professional, the past – our past – will show up to haunt us. One mistake is all it takes. In 8th grade, I took up Hapkido ( a cross-over from Aikido and Tai Kwan Do): a lot of arm twisting and jumping/kicking. I was just following a trend which my classmates started: some were into Judo, others Tai Kwan Do.

A month into my Hapkido practice, a visiting Red-belt stopped by the studio. He held up high a piece of wood and had all the students – white-belts like myself included – line up to run, jump and kick it. When it was my turn, he – for some reason – moved the target in mid-flight. I was aiming for it high, just to find myself landed flat on my arm.

That whole summer, I suffered ( people even wanted to sign on it to further my shame). Those of you who had ever broken a bone, know how painful the experience was. I could not ride the motorcycle anywhere. Homebound, I turned reflective and retrospective. I picked up an English phrase book and worked on it from cover to cover. Most importantly, I had a chance to quiet down (all the youthful energy subsided – no guitar of course) and saw ahead of the curve. I knew then and I know now, each of us is the sum of our choices.

Some will always be risk-averse. Others, risk-driven.

The former will work in a bank, the later with a cash-trap start-up. For instance, one of my classmates was already on a plane out of Saigon on its last day. He wasn’t sure it could take off, given its over-capacity due to the evacuation chaos. He then made a fateful choice to jump off it.

Years later, he saw an iron gate about to fall on some children. Once again, he reflexively ran to it just to end up paralyzed from the waist down. The end of the story was that he finally got to San Diego – 43 years since that plane trip he could have taken had he closed his eyes and said a Hail Mary.

One of the most fateful choices we have ever made would be that of choosing a mate.

How it turns out – will we be rejected etc.. Professionally, being in Sales is one of the most frightening undertakings: to have that internal dialogue to face each day, filled with rejections.

Yet it’s the most rewarding of careers, since life and work are full of risks. Scott Peck began his book ( The Road Less Traveled) with “Life is difficult”. Always a fork on the road with unseen potentials and problems. Yet we have made it thus far, albeit broken bones but not spirit.

Those who lived through a divorce or a death in the family learn to cope and move on.

Life is difficult. A sum of all our choices and circumstances. A propensity for risk-taking might not be all that bad. Bitter-taste life yet lived in full. Not missing a beat. I missed that one kick and learned since not to miss any opportunity.  I ended up working out on that left arm during therapy and working on my English phrasing. One of my favorites: In crisis, there is opportunity. Wait a minute, it’s Chinese, isn’t it.