Extra Challenge

BS#1 (11/23/2012)
“Extra Challenge”


There’s a Filipino reality TV show called Extra Challenge where participants are taken to the edge of personal endurance amid never-before-experienced challenges.
Tonight, I would like to take all of you to the show where I am the main cast.

I was still in college with my batch mates when I first set foot in Iligan. One of the places we toured was the Initao Park where we saw people jumping off a cliff and landing in the sea. The cliff was more than 20m high and the depth of the sea was unknown. One of my friends who was a local said that he had tried it before so we felt assured that it was safe. He volunteered to take the photograph so that all of us could do the jump. After our photographer gave his signal, I wanted to jump already, yet, I couldn’t move. The next second, I saw my classmates, who were all boys by the way, jumping off. I didn’t want to be out of the photo so I pushed myself to lean forward and pull my feet off the ground. It took like forever being in the air and feeling the gravity pull myself down. I had even asked myself several times when I was going to reach the sea. When I finally did, the gravity still kept pulling me down until I felt my butt touch the ground. Yes, I was already at the bottom of the sea. I had no idea how deep I had gone and how long I could hold my breath so I flapped my arms and kicked strongly while praying hard not to drown because my parents would surely kill me if I would. And when I saw the clouds and realized that I was already able to breath, I really thanked God I was alive.

I also remember when my hubby and I were still dating. He told me that he had eaten frogs and rats they’d caught from the rice field. He promised that one day he would let me try them. One day during a vacation in their province, my hubby arrived with excitement on his face. He was bringing a pack and proudly said “I really captured and cooked these just for you”. Sweet, right? When he transferred the pack into a bowl and the content was revealed, I wasn’t sure of what I saw so I asked “Are those frogs?” and he said “Yes” with a big smile on his face. Three decapitated fried frogs lay in front of me waiting to be munched. The smell of the garlic was overpowering so I was telling myself that the taste shouldn’t be bad. I first took a teeny weeny bite. Indeed, it tasted like fried chicken as what I’ve heard. And because it tasted good, I enjoyed eating all three of them.

The last challenge I would be sharing happened just last year.
In Lear, we have this yearly CIP or Continuous Improvement Project goals to be accomplished before the year ends.
The challenge was that if a team would achieve their goals by October they will be awarded and the leader of that team will be awarded as well.
Aside from that, the director promised to give an additional reward.
When I was appointed as the team leader of our section, I really told myself that I have to receive an award and our team have to receive an award.
Our team identified as many proposals as possible and pushed ourselves to reach the target before October.
The proposals that would make us reach the goals involved excel macro, yet, nobody from our team knows how to work on it and nobody is available to teach us even the basics of it.
Motivated by the reward, I educated myself with excel macro with the help of tutorials available in the internet and applied them to our identified projects.
I am very proud that our team was one of the awardees for the 2011 CIP Team and I was one of the awardees of 2011 CIP Team Leader.
However, I would have been more proud telling you this story if the reward was Trip to Afghanistan.

An extra challenge may be a physical test, mental test, or psychological test.
When you are able surpass every extra challenge, you feel a different kind of satisfaction.
How about you, would you be willing to be a cast of your own Extra Challenge?
Or would you rather be the host?