As I struggle with try or die trying, I’ve been seeking inspiration.

I’m wont to burden my team when I’m in these pensive moods, with the most random of questions. Like, who do you admire? Whilst they were hammering away on the keyboard at 4 in the afternoon. But they always indulge me, bless them. Dutifully, they stopped the hammering, tore their eyes from the screen and considered my question. Oh, the bemusement on their faces.. They must be wondering if this is part of their job description, playing shrink to their boss. Someone decided to take one for the team, and offered that the guy who broke the world record by solving the Rubik cube in 4 seconds must be admirable.

That got me thinking, and spared them from more random questions (it worked!). As they happily returned to their screen, I retreated to my thoughts. Let’s see, I admire LKY and Deng Xiaoqing first and foremost – they are in a pantheon of their own. It’s not just giants of history though, as I admire Stephen Hawking and Steve Jobs too. What do all these people have in common? Talent? But the Rubik cube guy has talent too, surely, but I don’t feel anything remotely resembling admiration for him. The common factor then became clear to me – it is the spirit and the commitment to contribution.

Spirit as in the strength of their mind. All of them have experienced unimaginable hardships, difficulties and setbacks. Endured fear, despair and doubt, of the deepest kind. Yet they were never crushed. They never sought excuses. They never succumbed. Deng Xiaoping was thrice purged. Thrice. The last time lasted almost ten years. During which his eldest son was crippled in the Cultural Revolution, and he was sent to the countryside, confined to menial jobs in a factory. There was no way out. He took long walks every evening, thinking. Thinking of what went wrong with his beloved country, and what had to be done to save it. This went on for years, until the opportunity arose for him to be accepted back into the political fold again. He did not hesitate. He was 70. 70. An age when most would have asked themselves – why bother? But he was clear about what had to be done, and devoted the rest of his life to doing it, until he died aged 92. His strength, his uncrushable spirit, and his commitment to contribute to his country and countrymen, his whole life. That’s what I admire, greatly.

You may point out the flaws, often deep, of these people. Yes, I know (lah). Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion” was probably a mean of bullying his staff into doing what he wanted of them no matter how impossible it might have seemed. He refused to acknowledge his daughter for a long time, demonstrating a capacity for cruelty that has to make one wonder. LKY was autocratic and heavy handed, taking no prisoners and brooking no dissent. I don’t dispute that. I’m inclined to think however, that none of those flaws detract from the fact that there was, in their spirit, a steel that embodies the best and biggest of human capacities.

Strength is a fascinating concept to me. It is not in whether one cries. Steve Jobs cried often apparently. LKY cried too, on national television when we were separated from Malaysia. Tears say nothing beyond that a person feels very strongly about something at that point in time. It is far from a sign of weakness. Strength is not in the appetite for extreme endeavors like skydiving or racing either. That’s daringness which is something different. Strength for me is in the choice we make. The choice not to succumb to fear, to stress, to setbacks, to difficulties, to disabilities, to illnesses. The choice to reach for the sky despite all these.

Come to think of it, the most interesting aspect of strength being a choice is the equality of it. God (or Nature, depending on whether you are religious or scientific..) may not have given me Einstein’s IQ but He has given me that choice to make. As He has given you. I can’t be much cleverer today than yesterday even if I decided to. But I can be much stronger. As can you. I can’t land a right hook KO today anymore than I can ten years down the road, no matter how hard I train, but I can certainly train my mind to be stronger. So can you. In that, everyone is equal. Our intellectual and physical abilities are not ours to decide, but our spirit is ours to define. To have that choice but not seize it seems then so very wasteful, no? The universe would have been a lot more forbidding, had Stephen Hawking not chosen to be defined by his boundless mind, than be constrained by his condition.

So try or die trying? Team, get ready, for I think I have the answer now.