“The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight...'

16 August 1998 | Endeavour

#memoriesfromdiaries 💕

UG Days’ Memories

We fared quite badly! 🙃

Yes! But still, ‘It was a good endeavour!’

My personal diary entry on 16 August 1998

As part of our DOE Club and Quiz Club activities, we had always excelled in any of the inter-departmental competitions that came up within our College!

Be it Elocution or Creative Writing or Just A Minute or Turn Coat or Extempore, our DOE Club members did amazingly well, and yes, we made a clean sweep of all the prizes as well! 😇

Ironically, or rather sadly, 🙈 that was not the case when we represented our College in inter-collegiate competitions!

We used to have the Spell Bee Championships at Hotel Sangam every year.

Our Quiz Club coordinator Dr. VKB had immense confidence in our abilities and he had also wished us the best, just the previous day!

A bevy of participants were busy buzzing around the Bee! The Spell Bee!

As is usual, participants from the hundreds of Colleges were then given the Preliminaries [also called the elimination round!]

We [Keerthivasan & Myself] representing our College, fared so badly in the Prelims, much to our shock and dismay.

But then, as I’ve written in my diary entry,

It was a good endeavour!

As noted critic Scupin Richard rightly points out,

Success teaches us nothing; but failures give us a beautiful reality check!

Well, the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word ‘endeavour’ as –

An attempt to do something, especially something new or difficult!

On that note, yes! it was an attempt!

A beautiful attempt we made – with our heart and soul!

We tried giving our best in this attempt as well!

And yes! We were able to learn a lot from this attempt!

The chinks in our armour were exposed big-time in this attempt!

We were able to introspect on our ‘Achilles heels’ with gusto in this attempt!

So we were simply glad that…

We attempted!

Yes, we did! 🥳🥳🥳

Reminds me of the Olympic creed which says -

“The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.”

Interestingly, only quite recently, [on 20 July 2021] the Session of the International Olympic Committee approved a change in the Olympic motto that recognises the unifying power of sport and the importance of solidarity.

The change adds the word “together” after an en dash to “Faster, Higher, Stronger”. The new Olympic motto now reads: “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together”.

The Olympics Official Page adds to say,

Together, the Olympic motto and creed embody an ideal that Coubertin believed in: that giving one’s best and striving for personal excellence were worthwhile goals. And where better to do this than through the pursuit of sport and participation at the Olympic Games? This is an important life lesson that is still equally valid today, not just for athletes but for everyone!

How true!

So yes! Just go ahead!

Attempt! Give it a shot!

All the best! 

PS: Personally, I’ve had this great fascination for Spell Champs of all hues! One reason I’ve so loved watching the 2006 movie, Akeelah and the Bee, that has some amazing life-lessons as take-aways for us all!

The climax scene especially, is... that ‘Chance-yyy illa’  type! 😍👌

So yes! do watch it asap! 🙏

In the meantime, you may want to read our past post on Akeelah and the Bee HERE on our blog! 😍