My father always said, “What you get after experiencing something is by far less important than what you become after experiencing it.”
This is what I always bear in mind when I participate in events or competitions. That whether I get to be a winner or a loser is not my main goal. What matters is what I become after joining the competition. It will be useless, if I become the winner but I do not become more knowledgeable, skillful, or mature. It was what I had put in mind when I joined the election of Youth Exchange program that took place in the hall of Dinas Pendidikan, Pemuda, dan Olahraga Bali.
The competition ran for 3 days where on each day I had to face three different tests and competed with other outstanding participants. The tests included communication test, leadership test, personality test, focus group discussion (FGD), and others. Saying that the tests were hard is wrong; they were really hard. It is because I had to compete with other male participants who were seemed to have more experiences than me. However, that did not discourage me from keeping myself on doing the best I could.
On the first day, I had an interview involving 6 different focuses. On the second and last days were writing, personality, and other tests. It would be a lie if I say I did not feel nervous during those times. I did feel nervous especially on the last day since it was the time, the result would be announced. The committees came up with the announcement of KPN, other programs, and my program was the last one to announce. I heard that some of my friends yelled my name when my program was announced. That was true, my name came up as the elected person for the program.
I was thankful to God, that I asked the other friends whether it was truly my name or not. That was it, my name was really announced, but again it was not about the matter of I won, I was tested, or I competed with outstanding people, it was about what I became after that. I really felt that those interviews, those tests, and those people made me a more knowledgeable, skillful, and mature Mandala. Thank you. (Made Astawa Kusuma Mandala)
