APEX on its 3rd!

It was never easy. It was a rough ride. It still is. There are days filled with pure passion and overflowing energy. But there are also those when motivation is scarce, times when your faith shrinks enough for fear to dominate. 

In a world where you are measured based on accomplishments, it is tempting to aim straight for results while bypassing the tiring process of clarifying principles, emphasizing values, and cascading vision. 

Why focus on growing people when you can drive immediate results that publicly display how great you are as a leader? Indeed, that could have been an easier route to elevate one's self. 

When you sow, you start by digging a hole. And a hole, filled with nothing but dirt, frustrates most people. But  one must realize that only trees deeply rooted on the ground stand the test of time.

I'll be honest, there were times when I doubted myself, my decisions, and the organization to the point of almost quitting. But seeing how this org continuously touch lives, transform individuals, and grow future leaders kept me going. Add that to the ambassadors who relentlessly believed on what the org can do. These are the things that fuel me to be better each day.

Just like a farmer planting a crop, it requires patience, faith, and perseverance to grow an organization. The virtue of farmers should be a source of inspiration. We reap what we sow. As for APEX, we exist to sow values and grow leaders. 

I'm blessed to have witnessed how this organization grew both in number and strength through for the past three years. Cheers to the years ahead! 

Prideful Beginning

I love learning and I enjoy trying new things. But there is something uncomfortable about it. 

In a span of few weeks, I had to write final essays and reports for my courses here in Japan. It was the most that I've written in my life in the shortest amount of time. I realized that my peers could write better works than me, even faster. I wondered whether it's because of the meager training I had in formal writing. I don't want to keep writing with cluttered thought so I started learning and re-learning writing styles by browsing guides online and observing how my friends pen theirs. 

Being a beginner at something requires total humility. Mastery starts with the recognition that there are a lot of people better than you. The initial stage of learning makes you feel that you are lacking the abilities that others inherently have. It seems unfair and it usually becomes a stumbling block to  stop pursuing something. 

Sometimes, the problem lies within our hearts. 

We dislike humbling ourselves because we become vulnerable. It makes us feel weak and incompetent. We view ourselves comparatively with people who have already spent enormous amount of time in their endeavors, thinking that we can never be as good as them. We become open to criticisms about the poor quality of our work. But it is only when we open ourselves to these challenges do we really accomplish individual growth. Studies after studies have shown how we can excel at virtually anything we want as long as we put hard work and perseverance (roughly 10 000 hours).

Perhaps, the question is not whether we are equipped with the abilities to reach something, but rather one that requires us to wrestle with our prideful hearts.