Losing doesn’t make one less great
Key Words
- expedition (n.)遠征隊
- drag (n.) 拖累
- confine (v.) 限制
- succumb (v.) 屈服；放棄抵抗
- depot (n.) 倉庫；補給站
- terrain (n.) 地形
- jettison (v.) 丟棄
We should be competitive in order to be successful. The goal of being competitive is to be the winner. However, sometimes losing a competition doesn’t make the competitor less great. Today our story is about a man who is well-known and well-respected for his failure.
A century ago, Robert Scott, a British, and 4 other men started off on an expedition. His goal was to be the first to get to the South Pole. Nobody had ever done it. He overcame difficulties and eventually got there. However, a Norwegian flag was waving there. He lost the competition. But losing the competition didn’t make him less great.
The weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad. Food and fuel supplies were low. One man died. Another, who didn’t want to be a drag on the team, crawled out into a blizzard and disappeared into snow. The other three survivors struggled on but then they were confined to their tent by another blizzard that lasted for nine days. They all succumbed to the weather. They were only 11 miles away from their depot.
Robert Scott lost the competition, his life, and the lives of his team. It seemed that he was a loser. It was eight months later when his body was found in the tent, people got to know what he was doing.
Alongside their frozen bodies, the rescue team found 16kg of fossils, a lot of notes for weather, animals, and terrains. They also found rolls of films, and a diary that described what they saw in details, and 7 letters. Obviously, they could and they should have dropped all these to lighten their load. They could and they should have jettisoned all these for a better chance of survival. But they didn’t. They thought these too valuable to give up for their lives.
Scott’s notes and diary left valuable records to scientists and what he did set an example to explorers. As for the 7 letters, in the first letter, he started from “To my widow”. He said goodbye and explained to his wife why he couldn’t be back to her. It became a symbol of true love and brave love. We must learn from what Robert Scott and his team. Losing a competition didn’t make them less great.
超凡遠距 